


New World, New Start

by CutlerBaudelaire



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bottom Draco Malfoy, Bottom Severus Snape, Bottom Tom Riddle, Boys In Love, Confident Harry Potter, Cute Draco Malfoy, Dark Harry Potter, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Female Harry, Harems, M/M, Multi, Powerful Harry, Self-Insert, Slow Burn, Slytherin Harry Potter, Stockholm Syndrome, Top Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2019-10-16 13:33:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17550650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CutlerBaudelaire/pseuds/CutlerBaudelaire
Summary: Helen has been a Harry Potter fan since she was a child.To find herself in Diagon Alley was a surprise.To find herself being stuck in the main character's body surprised her even more.





	1. A new beginning

It was a strange thing, being caged in another’s body.

She didn’t want this, and certainly didn’t ask for it in some sort of teenager crush rage. Of course, she’s said she wanted to live in the world of Harry Potter.

Being able to use magic and go to Hogwarts. Being sorted into Slytherin, her favourite house. Her situation now was quite a different one from what she’d wished, though.

A future member of the Gryffindor house and a boy, nonetheless. A huge change, especially the gender part. It didn’t help that it was a different time, not 2019 but 1991, two years after her original birth year. Normally she would be 29 now and become 30 on the 28th of December.

She had studied medicine and worked in a hospital in Germany. Something she had been really proud of. It was all gone now.

She was imprisoned in the body of an eleven-year-old boy, who’d be sorted into Gryffindor. Her name had been Helen. It wasn’t any more, though. Lost, she stood in the middle of the busy street.

Hands in her unruly black hair, one of them tracing the scar on her forehead she never had. Around her were so many people, most of them wearing robes and pointed hats, in all colours and shapes. Small carriers which held undefinable objects, some of them moving, others looking slimy and gross. Even the stores were strange. The wood old, the display windows full with articles, no order or price on them. Nothing was in anyway familiar to what she knew. Growing up in Germany, everything had its order and a clearness to it, which here obviously didn’t apply.

Everything was strange, it didn’t even look a lot like the Diagon Alley shown in the films.

The most irritable thing still was that she had no idea what to do next. Hagrid, who was supposed to show Harry around, obviously wasn’t here. Perhaps it was the part of the book in which Harry had to go to Madame Malkins to get his school uniform. A scene not shown in the movies.

She could feel a pouch filled to the brim with coins in her jacket. With no other clue, she started to make her way to the store with a scissor as shop sign. The scissor opened and closed, sometimes cutting cords, sometimes just fabric. If she wasn’t so stunned and under adrenalin, she’d most definitely not do anything right now and just give in to the instinct that told her to run as fast as she could and never look back.

That wouldn’t be possible, though, for all she knew they could track her down quite easily and then she’d have to explain why she would run, and she didn’t have the nerve to think of a legitimate excuse at the moment. So, she opened the old door, and a little sound filled the busy store. She could make out a lot of Hogwarts students, most likely here to buy new robes, just like she had to.

Sadly, Harry was a little small for his age, which meant that Helen got pushed all of a sudden. Stumbling she barely managed to stay on both feet and looked back to make out her offender.

Her eyes travelled up a long, dark robe up to light blond hair held back in a tie. With not really concealed irritation she recognised the man who pushed her as Lucius Malfoy, with Draco standing right beside his father.

“Watch where you are going, boy.” With those words the Malfoys walked past her, skipping the line to go directly into a room behind the counter. Blinking to swallow the irritation, Helen turned back to the counter and forcedly smiled at Madame Malkins who had just appeared from the room the Malfoys just vanished in.

“Come on dear, I bet you need some Hogwarts robes, am I right?” The witch didn’t wait for an answer and just indicated her to follow.

 

She’d been standing on the small pedestal for a few seconds now and could already feel Draco Malfoy’s grey eyes burning holes into her skull. Normally she would ignore staring people, mostly because people on German streets tended to look at everyone they saw, with no fear of staring into their faces. But now she knew she’d see the boy again, and making at least one friend, who would turn out to be really good looking as well, wouldn’t hurt.

“What’s your name?”, she asked him in a light tone. She wasn’t really sure how to approach having a friendship with the Malfoy heir, even if she knew him a little bit.

The real deal was always different, though.

“My name is Draco Malfoy! Will you go to Hogwarts as well? Do you already know what house you’ll be in? I`ll be in Slytherin, I`m sure.” Helen nodded and her new black hair fell into her eyes. It was a strange thing to have another hair colour other than her natural blond hair.

“I`m not as sure yet. I`m guessing either Ravenclaw or Slytherin as well.”


	2. A solid start

„Ravenclaw you say?“, Draco looked at her questioningly. Of course, he would ask her the house she preferred first and not ask for her name at all.

“Sure, why not? They’re clever and tend to stay out of the house conflict Gryffindor and Slytherin seem to have, if I can take what I heard seriously.” Draco’s grey eyes narrowed on her and he seemed to think deeply. While he was thinking, Helen noticed the scissors that previously flew around her excitedly and cut the fabric had stopped doing so. Right when it was getting interesting, she had to go, of course it would be like that. Next would be Ollivander’s.

Would she possibly get Harry’s original wand or another one? In the end, the wand chooses the wizard and she certainly wasn’t anything like the original Harry.

“Well, I have to pay and get my other things for Hogwarts. It was nice to meet you, Draco.” She winked in his direction and saw a blush working its way up Draco’s pale face. “Sure. See you on the train-“, before the boy could ask for her name she had left the fitting room to pay and left the store just as fast. Trying to get through the masses of people flooding Diagon Alley, she was thinking about everything that happened up to this point again. She hadn’t changed much until now. If she wanted, she could still pretend to be the normal Harry Potter and live her following life how he had his. But where would be the fun in that?

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Mister Potter! I have asked myself when you would come in here.” Helen smiled at the old man, trying not to look into his ghostly pale eyes. “Let’s try this one, first!” She swung the wand around, and a shock went through her body. Her hand clenched around the wand before throwing it away, holding her little hand against her flat chest. It was strange, not having breasts anymore. “Oh no! That won’t do at all!” Ollivander gave her another wand. This one was longer and was out of dark wood with little swirls engraved into it. “This one is unbendable, cherry tree wood with dragon heart string as a core.” When Helen touched the wood, a warmth flooded her. It was just like the book had described. It was as if a missing piece, of which she never knew she missed, had finally come back to her. “That’s the one?! Very interesting indeed! I would have thought another one would choose you, but you must know, it’s always the wand that chooses the wizard, Mister Potter.”

A knock on glass diverted Helen’s attention from the old man to look at Hagrid for the first time. In real life he was much taller and, pardon her being so crude, much fatter and hairier. That didn’t take her attention away from the soft smile directed at her, though. He was pointing excitedly at the cage in his hand in which Hedwig sat in. She couldn’t bring it over herself to rename the loyal bird. Helen paid for the wand and left the store to take a good look at the owl. “Thank you, Hagrid! I’m going to name it Hedwig, I think.” Hagrid laughed loud, attracting the attention from the people walking by. They shot them both nasty looks, but Helen couldn’t care less. “IT, is a girl, Harry. You gon’ take good care of ‘er.”

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The room Helen was in stunk like old socks and was dusty. She waited for the day she could finally go to Hogwarts. It had become her goal to learn as much about the real wizarding world as possible, never one to miss out on a good opportunity to learn. She had already read through most of her Herbology books and some of the potion’s books. They were really depending on each other, and as a former doctor, she had always been interested in ways to cure illness and potions were one way. Perhaps she could even build a friendship with Pomfrey and get her to teach her some healing. That would be most useful if her life would turn out anything like Harry’s. When she thought about it like that, where was the real Harry? Was he in her body? Hopefully not. The eleven-year-old boy wouldn’t be able to deal with being in the body of a twenty-nine-year-old woman. It just didn’t sound right. But thinking about it wouldn’t help her in any way. She had to concentrate on the future. Her future as Harry Potter, saviour of the wizarding world. Where should someone start? Learning ways to kill all those awful Death Eaters? Probably a good start.

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Finally, it was the day. The 4th of September and first day of Harry Potter’s first year in Hogwarts. Helen hasn’t been as excited for something in long time. Hagrid has brought her to King’s Cross and she found the way to the platform pretty quickly. She’s been in London before, even in the Harry Potter fan store at the train station. When she ran through the wall between the platform 9 and 10, the first thing she saw was the steam coming from the old train. A smile was sneaking its way onto her face. The Hogwarts Express looked magical. She was sure she could handle living as Harry Potter now. Even if she could never really forget who she was in her previous life.

The best thing she could do was to try and fuck up as much as she could.

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She had never really been a people’s person. Helen lacked empathy and tended to look at most things with a clear head, as to not get involved too much. Not getting involved was already out the window. Feeling empathy was another thing completely. She knew why people were sad about certain things, she could understand their reasons. She could just not feel with them. Feeling her own pain was enough already, why feeling sad for another person. It was just a difficult thing for her not to be too self-absorbed, especially in her current situation. Her head was still swarmed with possibilities to screw things up around her, while she had her head stuck in a book. When she was older, she used to read all the time. Every day she wasn’t taking shifts at the hospital she would read one book after the other. She lived quite the stereotypical doctor life. Watching documentaries about useless things all the time, of course only on the few sophisticated television stations Germany had. Her parents had funded her university life, which led her to never really have the worries most students had. Her lack of empathy had led her to make the decision to become a doctor. She had the choice between medicine and psychology. When her friends used to tell her a lot about their personal problems, she always had an opinion and was never scared to voice it. Perhaps she would have been a great psychologist as well, but probably not.

“You! I was searching for you. You never told me your name.” A silent smile graced her face, not lifting her eyes to the boy holding open the compartment door. It seemed that her silence agitated Draco. She heard him sniff haughtily while he shut the door and sat down in front of her.

“Did you hear that Harry Potter is supposed to be on the train? He had a mudblood mother. The Potter house was one of the families with the cleanest bloodline until his stupid father decided to marry her. Dim-witted idiots if you ask me.” Helen wasn’t feeling any offence by Draco insulting Harry’s parents. They weren’t really her’s, so why should she care what the blond thought of them. He was raised to think like that as well, so it mostly wasn’t his fault. “Yes, I heard that. Are you homophobic, Draco?” Big, grey eyes looked into her green ones. “W-why would ask that? No, I’m not! Being gay isn’t looked down upon in the wizard society. Only stupid muggles would have a problem with that!” Helen nodded in acceptance.

“Well, you hate muggles and muggle-borns, don’t you? Or at least you look down on them. Isn’t that like being homophobic? You look down upon a certain group of people for something they can’t do anything against. You make your life harder, hating so many people at once.” Draco was quiet for at least two hours after that. Helen had abandoned her book long ago to stare out of the window and admire nature. Train rides were always so relaxing. She supposed that Draco was offended by her comparing him to a homophobe, that’s why he wouldn’t talk. Draco in the books was a right prick and would never stop to complain and whine. Letting her head fall back against the head rest of the seat, she took a long breath. She was already getting bored. Even if train rides were relaxing, they got boring so fast. Especially when there was a person with you, but that person was too offended to talk to you. “So, what do you like to do in your free time, Draco?”  


	3. A new friend

Draco seemed surprised at her question. He even thought about it for a longer time than necessary.

“I guess I like to play Quidditch and potions. It’s an interest of mine, since my godfather helped me a lot when I was younger. What do you like to do?” Helen didn’t think the Malfoy heir would have the conscience to ask her back and actually show interest in her. He didn’t even know that she was Harry fucking Potter to begin with. His future archnemesis which he hated to the bone, mostly because Draco was jealous. Jealousy wasn’t usually something Helen was confronted with. Most of her old friends pitied her, since she had almost no free time, either learning for exams for her med school, or studying new ways to cure diseases and notice them sooner later on. She would consider documentary watching one of her few hobbies, but Draco didn’t know what documentaries were, and there was no point in explaining it to him.

“I like to read and learn new things. Sports are interesting as well, but I’m scared of heights, that means Quidditch isn’t something I like. I’m not even sure how I will survive the flying lessons.” She had been looking out of the window for quite some time now, but Draco’s laughter brought her attention back to him. Her green eyes locked with his grey ones again, and his giggling stopped.

“What?” Draco’s tone was snotty and arrogant again. The boy really confused her, but on the other side, he was just a boy in his pre-teens bordering to enter puberty.

“Nothing. Your giggling just sounds cute.” Silence.

“Cute? I’m not cute, and I’m not giggling, I’m chuckling at your bad joke!” Helen nodded in acceptance and took the book she had put beside her again. It was a Potions book, explaining the healing abilities some of the potions had. She had already read through most books that covered the fatal and torturing aspects of most others.

“You like potions as well?”, now he sounded excited again. He really was just a child.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Too many hours later, the train had finally arrived in Hogsmeade and Hagrid had led them to the great lake between them and Hogwarts. Now, getting onto one of the boats wasn’t difficult. Her parents had owned multiple boats and ships in their lives, and Helen had always been forced to come with them on small journeys to Denmark or the East of Germany. She’d been born and raised in the Northernmost city, Flensburg. With it’s beautiful harbour, it provided them with the perfect environment to buy and own boats. The tour to the castle was quite long and exhausting for everyone, even if they were just sitting and the boasts moves magically towards their ultimate goal. When the small tree branches were pushed aside by Hagrid, finally Hogwarts came into view. Helen’s breath left her body for a few seconds, her heart thudding in her chest. If she’d thought that the Hogwarts Express had looked glorious, then Hogwarts was a whole new level. The dark of the night swallowed up some parts of the stone, making it look like dark matter. The lights of the candles and torched lit up the windows of the hallways and classrooms, and letting the castle look illuminated by a mysterious light. It was perfect. Again, the thought came up that perhaps living in Harry’s body wouldn’t be too bad. After the boats had arrived at the little hut at the end of the lake and beginning of the castle grounds, the students were forced to climb up a horrid number of stairs until they finally made it to the great hall. Now, Helen had noticed the people around her talking about Harry Potter already when they left the train, but now the barley concealed whispers got even louder. Draco stood beside her on the stairs, waiting for McGonagall’s return. He hadn’t spoken to her again after their talk about potions. The boy she had met seemed far more able to just shut the fuck up occasionally than both, Draco from the book and the movie. He also didn’t talk with neither Crabbe nor Goyle, for which Helen was quite thankful. She didn’t want a forced friendship with either of them just because they were Draco’s friends.

“We’re ready for you now.”, the old witch’s words brought movement to the group of children, and they all moved to enter the great hall. The obligatory candles flew above their heads and the ceiling was bewitched to show the cloudy weather outside. It was nice.

What wasn’t as nice were the many stares they received. All the older students were staring at them like they were fresh meat ready for the taking. It annoyed Helen. Weren’t they used to new people? The group of children reached the end of the tables and stared at the little stool. Ronald Weasley had just whispered how his older twin brothers had told him the firsts years were required to slay a troll to enter the first year and be sorted into one of the four houses. Helen searched for Draco in the small crowd of children around her while the first ones were being sorted. When she found the head of blond hair, it was already too late, and her name was spoken by McGonagall.

She took small steps forward, until she left the crowd and was able to go without any hindrance. Her next steps were sure and confident. Helen didn’t want to act like a small child. With around 30 years of life experience she was only one year and some months younger than Snape now. In the movies, Alan Rickman was already quite old and decidedly older than the Snape in the books. That didn’t stop him from portraying Snape perfectly, though, how she could see now. He looked a lot like Alan Rickman, just younger and definitely cuter. Back when her interest in the Harry Potter novels was still huge, she used to have a little crush on Snape, but only after she’d read all the books and knew about his past and reasons. In her eyes, that didn’t excuse the disgusting things he did and said to Harry in the books. Especially when Harry was just a little child and didn’t know anything about his parent’s doings. Back then, Snape was just a bully in her eyes. Perhaps now she could stand up to him and bring some change. Helen wouldn’t take some guy insulting her at all. She had too much pride for that. When she sat down on the stool it gave a little, pathetic noise and her eyes widened slightly. Falling on her but wasn’t something she wanted to do in front of hundreds of students. Discreetly she searched for Draco in the crowd again. Their eyes met and Helen could see the betrayal on his face. To loosen him up a little, she made a little kiss with her lips in his direction and winked at him. Hiding her smirk at his red face and big eyes, the talking hat was sat on her head.

 _Oh! Who are you? Harry Potter is missing I see… Well, I’m here to sort you into a house, am I not?! I think you are just perfect for-_ “Slytherin!”

The great hall has probably never been this quiet. Some jaws even dropped, and Helen could hear teachers behind her gasp in shock. She had anticipated that reaction, though. So, without pulling a face, she stood up and walked over to the table under the green banners. She could wait until everyone found their breath again. If she had one thing, it was stamina. The kid beside her stared at her like she had three heads. A small smile began to show on her face, when McGonagall tried to bring back some normalcy and called out the next name on her list. Green eyes swept over the teacher’s table and landed on Severus Snape. Her earlier observations were correct. Snape looked like a small snack. His black hair, although greasy from the potion fumes and leaned over all the time, was a little on the longer side and almost reached his shoulders. Helen laid one of her finger tips on her lips in thinking. Perhaps when Harry’s body was a little older, not yet.

Finally, it was Draco’s turn to get sorted, and of course he came to the Slytherin table just seconds later. With a cute glare he made the child sitting beside Helen change seats with him and sat down. “Why didn’t you tell me?”, was the only thing he whispered to her. Helen laid her head on her hand and looked at him with narrowed eyes. Making some real friends out here would be hard, especially because she had this quite big secret to carry around with her. “Why should I have done that? You told me what you thought of Harry Potter on the train, didn’t you?” Draco balled his fists, and both tried to drone out Dumbledore who made his speech. “Well, that was before I knew you. Opinions can change.” Helen nodded and laid one hand on Draco’s fragile looking shoulder. “Of course, they can. Let’s forget about this and just be friends, alright? Just think about it, a Malfoy and a Potter, friends! How shocking that must be.” The blond nodded and grinned slightly at her. Her smile widened and Dumbledore finished his speech. He didn’t say anything she didn’t know already.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Slytherin common room was right her alley. It was dark but cosy, with shrunken heads on the wall and some students sitting at a table playing with cards. Everything was held in dark green, blue or black colours, with even the fire crackling in green. The prefects had told them all the password for the entrance that was hidden deep in the dungeons. There were also some more rules than Harry had gotten in Gryffindor. There was the rule, that fights within the house were to be fought in the common room or completely alone. Since most houses had something against the Slytherins, they had to be a strong unity on the outside. When the prefect had told them that, he had looked pointedly at Helen, as if she would start fights with others on purpose. They were also all to go to breakfast together and some other shit Helen didn’t really pay attention to. Something about earning many house points and so on. While Helen didn’t pay attention and rather looked at the common room, Draco had seemed to be taking notes of everything the prefect had said. Of course, not literal notes, but he listened intently and nodded proudly when the prefect talked about Slytherin as a unity. Helen was far too tired to do anything else than fall into bed at night. It had been a tiring day with many happenings and new information for her previously mundane head. Everything was strange in this universe. The only thing she was left to do was accept it all how it was. Slytherin had rooms that each for two people, which meant no five or six persons in one room like in Gryffindor. Draco had decided that they would share a room, so now she was laying in the silver silken sheets of her bed, barely awake but still thinking about everything. “Harry?”, Helen sighed a little, but turned to the other bed in the room, nonetheless. She hummed in question and heard the sheets of the other bed shuffle. The sound of feet hitting the floor followed suit, and Draco stood beside her head, crouched down to talk to her better. “Roll over.” Helen was quite shocked at the command Draco had just given her. Her eyes fluttered open, and even on the dark she could see Draco’s red face close to hers, almost laying beside her on the pillow. Without words she rolled back a little and lifted her covers. In her life as Helen, she’d had a little brother. He was three years younger than her and they both used to fight a lot. It got better over time, but she had always had this protective streak in her when it came to her brother. Now there was only that way to think about Draco. Now he was just her brother, since he was far too young for her. She would feel like a paedophile thinking about how good looking he would come out to be. For now, all she could do was hold his hands when he turned to face her and hope that he would sleep soon.


	4. A new occupation

In the morning, the first thing Helen did was shower. To wash a stranger’s body wasn’t anything new to her. Even if that job was usually reserved for the nurses at her hospital, sometimes the doctors had to lend a helping hand. It was still comical to wash another’s body that was actually hers. She stopped thinking about it after some minutes though. The thought came back when she went to the toilet, though. As somewhat of a clean freak, she didn’t pee in the shower, but doing it in the toilet didn’t make it any less strange. Not having to sit down was one of the best things that could happen to her, she decided. It was an out of body experience.

Standing besides Draco in the two pair line they had to form, Helen waited for the rest of the house to arrive, so that they could leave for breakfast. She was really hungry, even if she usually just drank a lot of coffee and waited until lunch to eat. She knew how incredibly unhealthy that was. When finally, the last of the other students arrived, they started to walk out of the common room through the dungeons. After some time of walking, Helen started to hear the whispers around her start again. Couldn’t they shut up once in a while? Throwing a look in Draco’s directions, she saw him looking back at her. He didn’t seem as concerned with the whispers as she was. Perhaps it was the God-given obliviousness of a child. Helen should take him as an example. Caring too much about the wrong things had never brought her very far. Sometimes cutting off the feelings you held for a specific thing was the best thing you could do to not get irritated by them. The things she’d read in her psycho thrillers really seemed to help her in this situation. Without thinking about the whispers any further, Helen continued to walk towards the great hall, trying to remember the way as best as she could. Trying to remember the way by the portraits that hung upon the walls would be useless, since they liked to walk around the frames all the time to visit other portraits. Entering the great hall, the other house were already sitting in groups at their tables and were not really paying attention to the horde of Slytherins that just entered the hall. Shovelling food into her mouth, Helen’s eyes wandered through the halls again. That seemed to be the only thing she did nowadays. Just looking around searching for someone to observe and think unnecessary much about. The first person that came into her view was Pansy Parkinson, who was throwing death glares at her from over the table. She had a cute haircut, but the frown on her face made her quite ugly. Perhaps she was jealous of Helen for spending so much time with Draco. As far as Helen could remember, Draco and Pansy went to the Yule ball together, even if Draco ended up marrying Astoria Greengrass eventually. At least in the books.

Next her eyes found Ronald Weasley. She was curious as to how the red head would react to her. She knew the boy had a deep admiration for Harry Potter, but perhaps it was distinguished after she was sorted into Slytherin instead of Gryffindor. At the end her eyes met the beetle black orbs of Hogwarts’ resident potions master. A sudden pain in her head reminded her of Snape’s special skill. Legilimency. Until now she hadn’t considered that particular set of skills Snape had, and Dumbledore as well. Only fast thinking got her to think of something she could show Snape in her mind instead of her personal memories. It was all she had remembered of a documentary about Laryngectomy. It was nothing particularly important, only a memory a young boy could have from watching too much TV. Helen really hoped that it worked, but since Snape wasn’t jumping up and demanding to see her in his office or something, she deemed herself safe for the moment. Really, she should be awarded a medal for her quick mind. A small push from her side let her look back at her friend besides her.

“Why are you staring at Professor Snape? You do know that he is the head of the house Slytherin? I wouldn’t mess with him, if I were you.” Draco had that arrogant tone in his voice again, even if he seemed to be concerned for her life in Hogwarts should she have Snape as an enemy. “I don’t know. I was just staring, no need to worry.” Draco gave a kind of condescending look, Helen wasn’t even aware children could pull off. If Draco could act like an asshole, she would as well. Just not yet.

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Potions was, just like she has expected, totally her thing. Snape didn’t harass Harry Potter like he had in his other first potions class. Helen could bet that it had something to do with her being in Slytherin. Apparently, even the head of house had to abide the rules and repress his need to fight Harry until they were somewhere alone. In the end it didn’t matter anyways, but Helen still thought about it. The only thing that really unnerved her a little, was her eyesight. In her normal live, she never had any problems with her eyes, even if most members of her family had. Now she could barely see how she was cutting the ingredients and how big the pieces were. She was certain that her eyesight was one of the factors that Harry was so bad at potions. Draco’s constant manipulation of his potions was another factor, of course.

After their first few lessons, Draco and Helen sat in the library to work on some of the homework they had already been given. Visiting a boarding school and still having to do copious amounts of homework didn’t sit right with her but writing essays about magical things just sounded like something she would have done in her real live as well. And after med school she was the best at learning new things. As a doctor you learned something every day, and the work of a first grader was as easy to her as the alphabet. Draco was of some help as well, since he already had a lot of knowledge after growing up in a pure-blooded family. Next up was their first flying class, something Helen was not looking forward to at all.

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Neville was flying really high up the air. The fall would definitely hurt, even if he only broke his wrist. Why didn’t Hooch have some sort of plan for that? Didn’t she have her own broom to get Neville down safely? Neville fell, lost his little forget me not, and Draco took it with him, now, without Harry standing up for Neville, Ron seemed to take that spot.

“Give it to me, Malfoy! It’s not yours!”, the red head yelled. Ron’s face got red when Draco smirked and started to fly away. Crossing her arms, Helen just shook her head. A few seconds after Ron Weasley had gotten up on his broom and flew after Draco, Hermione Granger came up beside her.

“I really can’t understand how you’re friends with someone like Malfoy. He’s so vile.” Helen shrugged and leaned back to get a better look on the boys flying around the yard.

“He’s cute. Even if he tries to come over as an asshole, he isn’t one. Maybe just a little.” Hermione looked at her with big eyes that flickered from her to Draco up in the air. “Don’t look so surprised. We all have our own friends, I can assure you Draco is mine while Ron is yours.”

“Ron Weasley is certainly not my friend! He’s an imbecile and rude.” Oh, so they weren’t friends at all? Surprising, even though they only became friends because of Harry, Helen somehow thought they could make do. “Okay, if you say so.” With those words Helen left the yard to do something else. Draco could care for himself if he thought it was necessary to fight with the Weasley boy.

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Most of the following days went by without further hindrance. Helen still sometimes felt the pressure in her head when she would accidentally stare at Snape again, but they hadn’t had a private conversation yet. Helen was excelling at all her classes, but especially at potions and herbology, which were also her favourite classes. Today Helen wanted to talk to Pomfrey. She had some trouble shaking off Draco at first, but after mentioning that the Weasley boy had said something bad about him this morning at breakfast, the blond was returning to the great hall to confront him.

Walking into the Hospital Wing, Helen was assaulted by the familiar smell of ill people and some sort of disinfectant. A smile graced her face and she looked for Pomfrey, finding her sitting in a small office with see-through windows. Approaching it, the witch noticed her before Helen could knock and the door opened by itself.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Potter?” Helen stood by the door-frame, still smiling slightly.

“I was just wondering if I would be able to learn some more about healing from you? If that’s an option at all?” Pomfrey looked genuinely surprised, before she slowly returned Helen’s smile. “Of course, it is, young man! I’m surprised you find pleasure in helping others like that and wanting to learn more. Nothing like your father when he was your age.”

“Great! When can I start?” Pomfrey made a gesture for her to sit down on the chair in front of her office desk, and Helen did so. “Now, first I have to know what you already know and what you expect of an internship here. Perhaps you should also start in your second year, get used to Hogwarts before you take on such responsibility, because I don’t want you to think that I will let you down easy if you really do this.” Helen nodded and told Pomfrey, that she already had experience working with sick people, but only with muggle ways of healing. She didn’t mention her doctor or time working at the hospital, just some strange version of his aunt being a nurse and bringing him to work after he asked. It was a very bad story, but sometimes easy things were better to believe than some thought-through stuff with big reasons. Not everything had to be complicated. After their talk, they decided that Helen would start the internship in the Christmas holidays, which she would spend at Hogwarts anyways.

Going back to the common room, Helen was very satisfied with herself. Somehow it was still strange living in an alternate universe. She would ready herself to face everything being thrown in her way. Everything.


	5. A big step

The day had started with water wetting Helen’s face and sheets. Enraged she sprung to her feet to face her offender, to only just see the back of Draco’s pale blond hair.   
Over the last few days the boy had gotten a lot more comfortable with her, which actually really surprised Helen. She did her best to seem unapproachable to the other students and not smile too much.   
Draco, though, had broken through her farce quite fast and discovered that she was a softie at heart. That was why she wouldn’t hunt him down forever for waking her this way.   
Only a few hours would be necessary to plan her revenge on him.  
The faked howler Draco had gotten from his mother this morning had exceeded Helen’s greatest dreams. Draco had gotten beat red while the howler yelled about something concerning undone homework, the only thing Draco actually put work into at the moment. He prided himself for his knowledge in magical matters, especially Potions and DADA.   
Helen had learned a lot from him until now. There was some useful information in his head, Helen had a special interest in. Information about dark artefacts hidden from the public eye, but Draco had listened carefully when his father had let any information slid by. Of course, the young boy didn’t know that the knowledge he brought her could be used for anything even remotely bad or out of the ordinary. Perhaps he thought she wanted to know because she didn’t know a lot about magic in the first place. She’d told Draco sometime when they were sharing a couch in the Slytherin common room that she lived with her muggle aunt and uncle. She’d felt Draco tense beside her for a moment, but after that he had just tried to express his pity for her poor state of knowledge without showing too much disgust for her supposed relatives.   
Like stated earlier on, Draco’s little hatred for muggles didn’t really concern her if not for the completely deluded part of judging people for something they could do nothing about.   
Calling them stupid muggles or anything wouldn’t hurt her personally in the slightest, though. Caring was just too bothersome.   
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sitting in Potions again was quite bothersome as well. Especially, since Snape had taken to making small snide remarks about Helen’s apparent talent for the subject. Always comparing her to Harry Potter’s father and bringing the dead man down, now that he couldn’t defend himself anymore. Like the muggle public did with Michael Jackson.   
“Now, Mister Potter, would you explain to the class why you took daisy roots for this potion, instead of the instructed tulip root?” Helen knew, that Snape knew that the book was wrong, and she was right. He only wanted to know if she knew that too and had not just gotten it wrong by accident. “Well, Professor Snape, daisy root just works better for this particular state of the potion.   
The juices of the tulip root are too watery to get us to the desired thickness.” Showing off in classes was kind of her thing, in this world just as it had been in her old one.   
Sighing Helen shook her head softly and got a bit lost in thought, not noticing Snape’s pinched face when he turned away to give Slytherin 5 points.   
Her little hand found its way into her unruly hair, which she had to get fixed some day soon, and started to play with it. Thinking of her real life as ‘old’, was defeating. There was really no foreseeable way for her to get back anytime soon without having to tell someone and make her reliable on that person. Reliable and vulnerable, two things she hated.   
So, fighting through this perhaps wasn’t the healthiest choice, but the one her stubbornness demanded. Draco beside her seemed to notice that she got lost in her depressing train of thoughts and shook her shoulder lightly. Giving him a thankful smile, she continued to concentrate on her potion, missing the smile Draco had on his face afterwards. The blond boy really started to grow on her. Next up, though, was the problem of Harry Potter’s little prophecy and Quirrell, who was horrible to listen to in his lessons. His constant, faked stuttering annoyed Helen to no end. The thing he did when he blinked, the almost full body flinch always got her to correct her blinking after.   
Her subconsciousness tried to copy his stupid tick. Quirrell would be the easiest obstacle to remove. She really just had to touch him somehow to kill him, right? She saw no problem with that.   
They were all just characters in a book anyways. Just discarding everything stopping her from making a bad decision, or an amoral one, was the easiest way to go. Waiting for the right moment was the approach she wanted to take for killing the stuttering idiot. Another thing Helen had noticed after a few days of being in Hogwarts, was her sinking moral code and rising ruthlessness.  
A part in her had stopped caring for what really happened after her life had been taken from her. It was all numb inside of her now. Even the affection she felt for Draco was muted.   
She knew she liked the boy, but a real feeling did not arise.   
“Do you think Snape just doesn’t like you because of something your father did? He is always mentioning him. It’s getting kind of annoying.” Helen saw Draco’s annoyance for what it really seemed to be. The Malfoy heir was becoming protective of her. He didn’t appreciate Snape putting Helen down and was searching for a reason why his godfather would do something like that.   
Helen just shrugged and stopped Draco at crushing his root too much. “I believe you’re right, but I also don’t particularly care for his reasons.   
At least I get to earn Slytherin some points for the house cup. Merlin knows everyone here wants that thing.” A smirk fell into place when she mentioned Merlin.   
Draco had told her that speaking like that would make her blend in better.   
It still sounded quite ridiculous in her opinion. Draco didn’t look too satisfied with her answer, though. He continued to crash his root and finally gave up, just throwing the thing into his pink glowing potion. “The house cup is overrated, if you ask me. I don’t care for things like that anymore!” Helen raised one of her dark eyebrows at Draco and smiled teasingly.   
“Since when?” She knew how to get Draco annoyed, questioning his decisions like that was one way. “Since I’m not a little boy anymore. I only care for the really important things now.   
Like, getting into the Quidditch team!” Whistling appreciatively Helen walked around Draco to get another ingredient, gently pinching into his side as she went.   
Draco gave a little shriek at the action and jumped too high not to be suspicious. “Are you ticklish?” Blond hair flew around when Draco shook his head. It was kind of funny to watch him struggle to convince her that he could never be ticklish. He was a Malfoy, after all.   
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Getting teachers like McGonagall to like you was one of the easiest things in school life, in Helen’s humble opinion. The woman wanted to teach her students something, and Helen was eager and had a brain like a sponge. On some subjects it seemed like a stone, especially when someone tried to get her to change her opinion on a certain matter.   
But McGonagall noticed that Helen had a very independent mind and style of learning. She always gave her more than enough homework, most likely trying to get her to catch up on everything she missed growing up with muggles. Soon Helen was top of her Transfiguration class, but that was mostly just because Draco wasn’t in it as well. It seemed that most pure-blooded children didn’t get to use their magic a lot before Hogwarts, with Draco as an exception. That meant that all knowledge they had was from seeing and reading about it, which was still more than Helen had, but they were children as well, and a little slow.   
In McGonagall, Helen had found one more person to teach her about the wizarding world, and the etiquette for women and men.   
So, Helen got to learn how to be a gentleman in a private lesson the older teacher had offered her one day. Now Helen annoyed Draco by pretending to practice how to be a gentleman on him, giving him small gifts and just being charming and courteous. It was different from her normal, subdued exterior and behaviour towards the boy but she’d felt the need to expand her horizons a little.   
The robbery in Gringotts had been a weekend ago, and Helen was thinking about contacting Nicolas Flamel.   
She’d seen the old wizard in the newest ‘Fantastic Beasts’ movie. Helen didn’t particularly like those movies, they were just made to make more money out of the HP fandom, in her opinion, and the character development of Newt was lacking, together with various things she just didn’t agree on with the way the movie was directed and portrayed some stupid fan theories as truths.   
She really hoped they wouldn’t be included into the universe she was in right now, at least the ridiculous ones. Now she still had the body of an eleven-year-old boy, but soon she’d be able to travel around and discover for herself. If she remembered correctly, Newt Scamander was even seen on the Maurauder’s map in Harry’s third year or so.   
Contacting him would be a possibility as well. Contacting Flamel wouldn’t help her in anyway, she decided while she sat in the library, doing some of her many homework. Deciding that it was time to take Harry Potter’s fate into her own hands, Helen sat up and packed away her things into the already hazardous looking school bag she’d bought just weeks ago.   
Quirrell had to go, at last. 

Today’s DADA lesson with him had been a real pain again, especially because he had asked Helen a few more than stupid questions that took him far too long to get out.   
Worrying about the next step would no longer be something she’d do. She knew where Quirrell’s chambers were, Draco and Helen had discovered them after she’d convinced Draco to spy on the stuttering professor as a joke.   
Sometimes Draco really was too naïve.   
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Knocking softly on the hard wood of the door, waiting for someone to open, Helen stood in the cold corridor. It was strange to think about why she stood in front of this door right now.   
She was here to kill someone, something she hadn’t done on purpose until now. Every other death at her hands had been a tragic exception in the life of a doctor.   
After a few seconds, the door was opened slightly, and Helen could make out the blue fabric of the turban Quirrell had worn that day.   
It was ruffled, obviously put in place quite hastily.   
“M-Mister Potter! T-t-to what do I owe t-t-the p-pleasure of your v-visit?” Helen rolled her green eyes visibly and sighed in exasperation, shocking the professor slightly and making him step back a little.

“M-Mister Potter?” Without further words wasted, Helen stepped in through the door frame and stood in the middle of her professor’s chambers. The room was full of mirrors and fabrics draped over almost every surface. The rest was obscured by the general darkness, since almost no candles were lit at the moment.  
“You can cut the pleasantries, Quirrell. I don’t care for your stupid charade anymore. Let’s get to business, shall we?” She heard the other man gasp behind her, and the door falling closed.   
“I-I-I don’t know w-h- “, Helen interrupted Quirrell. “You can stop it now, Quirrell. Let me speak to your Lord.” Quirrell’s face became stone cold, just like hers.   
“How do you know that, boy? What gave me away?” His voice sounded rough and used, like he had been yelling for a long time before her arrival.   
“It doesn’t matter, does it now? I wish to speak with your master, not you.”   
“He is too-!”, an old voice interrupted the man defending his master. The voice was creepily happy, almost whispering but still sounding loud in Helen’s sensitive ears.  
“Let me talk to him! Let me see him…” Reluctantly, Quirrell lifted his turban off his head and turned his back to Helen.   
If she hadn’t seen the back of Quirrell’s head in the movies already, Helen would have flinched away at the disgusting sight of the face on the bald head.   
“Harry Potter… It’s unfortunate to see you again. See to what you reduced me, a mere shell of my former self.” One of Helen’s dark eyebrows rose on her forehead and she stepped forward to look at Voldemort better.  
“I believe you did that to yourself. I hate to see you again as well, though. Would have done better without it.”  
“What a stupid, insolent little boy you grew to be. I should have killed you when I had the chance, but dear Lily just had to throw herself into the way and give her life for yours.   
Don’t you ever feel guilty to have been the reason for your mother’s death?” Quirrell obviously wanted to say something as well, fidgeting around with the blue fabric still clutched in his shaking hands.   
“I don’t care for your words, Tom. I only want one thing. You want to know what?” Quirrell turned around, causing Voldemort to screech and Helen to smirk into his confused face.

“To kill you.”

With sure steps she made her way towards the professor and the laughing Voldemort on his head, thinking Harry was just being delusional. Raising her hands to the man’s face, she drew it back at the last second, only to surprise her teacher with a strong hit on the cheek. He fell back a couple of paces and held his face in shock while Helen held her wrist in one of her hands.   
She’d never really been in such a physical confrontation before. That would have to change in the future, tough, since now the professor was charging at her, with a yell of pain and anger.   
The place she had hit him had burned his skin horridly. Her small body was thrown to the other side of the room and pain exploded at the back of her skull, barley allowing Helen to stay conscious.  
But even as Quirrell stood above her form, grinning evilly, Helen smiled back. He squatted down and punched her just like she had done previously.   
Now Helen had to act fast, before something more severe happened to Harry’s body. She grabbed Quirrell’s hands at his next try to hit her, and just like in the movie, she saw him jump back in fright at the sight of his hands evaporating into nothingness. When she saw the last of Quirrell’s robes fall to the floor and felt a strange power entering her body, a final laugh left her before she lost all grip on reality and fell unconscious.


	6. A revealing conversation

Waking up, everything hurt.   
The back of her head pulsated like never before, and she’d had some real bad hangovers in her life. The slow regaining of her consciousness took quite some time, but after a few minutes Helen became aware of her surroundings again. Opening one of her heavy eyelids, she made out Quirrell’s clothing right in front of her, laying on the ground in one big heap.   
That meant that no one had come to find her yet, perhaps her absence wasn’t even noticed of her peers. Slowly trying to get to a sitting position, her ribs protested vehemently, and Helen hissed in pain.   
Her whole body ached. It was so cold in the room, that her limbs began to shake, and Helen gathered her legs closer to her body, for once realising what had just occurred. Tears gathered in her unfamiliar, green eyes and they fell closed with exhaustion. Helen’s fingers clutched her pant legs and she tried to breath normally.   
Everything felt wrong.   
Sitting on the dusty floor in the remains of Quirrell’s body, his clothing still on the floor. She’d been so brave and fearless just a few hours ago, but now there was nothing left of it. The coldness crept into her small body, cowering on the floor. The floor that shouldn’t exist, just like everything around her. It couldn’t be real.   
After weeks of spending her time in this world, Helen thought she’d found her peace, but she was still far from it. Finding a friend in Draco and exceeding in her classes just barely helped her mental state, which was falling into pieces.   
A sob wrecked her body, and she closed her hand over her mouth. Hopefully no one could hear her crying in here. Cold tears began rolling down her dirty cheeks, leaving the skin wet.   
A shuddering exhale was heard next, and Helen began to gather her thoughts again. Crying on the floor wouldn’t help her in the slightest, but she couldn’t deny that letting her emotions run wild for once felt relieving. Like some of the wrongness had left her system to make room for acceptance. The tears stopped falling again, her control over her body re-established.   
Slowly, Helen began to crawl over the hard wood floor to Quirrell’s robe, trying to find anything useful. The robes were empty, though, save for the dust of his body. She abandoned her searching and used a nearby chair to stand up.   
Taking one big breath, she started to make her way out of Quirrell’s chambers. After some seconds of walking through the corridors, she suddenly heard voices, or rather one voice talking to itself.   
Helen quickly hid behind a wall and saw Snape rushing by, his black robes billowing behind him. She couldn’t hear what he said exactly, but he seemed to be very agitated and that on a Saturday evening. That was when Helen decided to cut Snape some slack in the future. After her breakdown she had more understanding of difficult situations and even if she didn’t really like Snape due to his unacceptable behaviour towards Harry in the books, he hadn’t done anything to her yet, and even seemed to appreciate her knowledge and talent in Potions. Sighing quietly, Helen resumed her way to the dungeons, eager to shower and fall into bed after.   
The day had been a horrid one, now that she understood that there was no going or taking back of what she did. It was like her real life, just in another place. She murmured the password to the statue protecting the common room and rushed through the sitting area straight to her room. Gathering all her needed clothing she locked herself in the bathroom and started disrobing.   
Harry’s body had been small and frail in the beginning, but Helen had begun to eat more for her body’s sake and filled out the missing spots, gaining weight.   
Now she finally had a normal weight for a boy Harry’s age, and Helen really hoped she’d get taller than the Harry in the movies and books. She’d been pretty average height in her previous life, but as a guy she wanted to be on the taller side.   
If Harry’s body wouldn’t grow out to be how she wanted it, she’d just take potions to aid her. Other than the additional weight, she’d gained various bruises as well.   
After turning and looking at her back in the mirror as well, Helen bit her lips and let out a quiet; “Fuck”, assessing the rest of her injuries.   
A visit in the hospital wing would do her some good, but she didn’t want to alarm anyone and get more attention than needed.   
Waiting it out was just as good of a choice.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, it was winter holidays, or like the wizards called it ‘Yule’. Whatever was the difference. Draco had tried to explain it to her, but Helen wasn’t really interested in the muggle background of the tradition either, so it didn’t really matter to her. The school had been a battlefield since Quirrell hadn’t been found anywhere neither in his chambers nor on Hogwarts’s grounds or somewhere else. Students have been asked aside for questioning, and especially Snape had been more stressed and thus, harsher than normal.   
He’d been lashing out at Helen more and had taken to insult James Potter more often than not. Everyone could feel the uncomfortable atmosphere in the classroom when he’d started his tirade the first time.   
Since Helen hadn’t been taking sides in the house rivalry, most had a neutral view on Harry Potter, and no one really understood what she’d done for Snape to treat her like that now. The latest incident had made Draco angry at his godfather as well. Helen had felt him shaking in anger beside her when Snape had insulted their shared potion and compared them to primary school students. In Helen’s opinion, the insult hadn’t been good enough to warrant such a response, but Draco was easy to react to any provocation.   
Carefully, she laid a hand on Draco’s shaking arm, trying to calm him down.

“It’s alright, Draco. Just ignore him.” The arm was wretched out of her hold and Draco looked at her unbelievingly.

“No, it’s not alright! We just cost Slytherin house points and not even deserved, our potion looks exactly like it should!” Helen nodded a little to let him know that she understood his reasoning.

"You’re right but choose your battles wisely. Is it really worth the trouble? Everything will calm down once they found professor Quirrell and we’ll be out of his radar again.” Draco drew his eyebrows together and frowned.

“Where is that fool, anyway? I bet he ran away because he couldn’t handle his stupid stutter anymore. He was such a joke.” They were both sitting beside each other at their shared desk, still listening to Snape with one ear. They’d been disqualified for that lessen, though, and had nothing to do now. The other Slytherins threw them hidden looks of confusion, trying to understand how two of their best students had ended up that way. 

“I don’t care. He annoyed me just like you. I could never understand how Dumbledore hired someone like him.” Something seemed to rub Draco the wrong way with Helen’s answer, she noticed. He looked somewhat closer into her eyes but couldn’t decide if what he’d found was of any use or not. Perhaps Draco wasn’t always as naïve as she’d initially thought.

That conversation had been days ago, and now Draco was on his way back to his parents, while Helen was the only Slytherin student staying in Hogwarts over the winter break.   
In Hufflepuff were three students, and in Ravenclaw around six, which were quite many, but the rumour had been that some of them wanted to get an Outstanding in their final exams this year and had stayed behind to study. If Helen had a family to return to over the holidays, she definitely wouldn’t prefer to spend her time studying in some old castle.   
Gryffindor had the Weasleys staying in Hogwarts, no one else. It was the first day of the holidays, and Helen had dressed herself up to take a leisurely stroll over Hogwarts’s grounds to explore some more. A visit to Hagrid’s hut was also planned for today, and after that she’s start on her Potions homework, which would take longer than the other subjects.   
It was cold outside already; the grass was frozen and made a crunching noise when Helen stepped on it.   
The air was crisp and clear, stinging a bit in her throat while breathing, since it was so cold. Adjusting the green silver Slytherin scarf around her neck, Helen broke into a small run down the steep hill on which Hogwarts was build.   
The air around her rushed in her ears, her eyes began to water, and her breaths got deeper. Coming to a halt just before the beginnings of the Forbidden Forest, Helen began to look through the trees in hopes of seeing a magical creature or something else of interest. After some looking about, she gave up, not expecting to see a creature near the castle anyway.   
Where she could see one, though, was in Hagrid’s hut. The half giant should still have Norbert, since Harry had never set out to ask Hagrid about the stone and Draco hadn’t ratted anyone out to McGonagall. Walking over to the hut, Helen knocked loudly on the weary wood holding the hut together. After some waiting, heavy steps neared and the door was ripped open, the end of a crossbow pointed to her head. Surprised she took two steps back and drew her wand, just in case. 

“Har’y! I’m s’ sor’y! Thought you wer’, y’kno’… somethin’ els’.” Helen nodded and put her wand away, entering the warm hut.

“Don’t worry, Hagrid, I’m fine. But what did you think I was?” Hagrid had filled a huge teapot with water and took out an even bigger cookie jar from a cupboard. 

"Well, ya gotta know that it don’ happen anymore. It stopped a few weeks ago bu’… I found a few dead unicorns in the forest and, Harry, somethin’ or someone drunk their blood.”   
Helen nodded in understanding and took one of the cookies of which she knew that they would be too hard to actually eat. She nibbled on it anyways, and the taste wasn’t half bad. 

“That means that person wants to prolong their life, yes? But at the price of killing something as pure as a unicorn, a long life will be flawed. You said it stopped, do you know what did it? Or what stopped it?” The half giant shook his head and Helen pursed her lips in fake questioning. She had saved some unicorns by killing Quirrell as well. 

"Hagrid, didn’t you have a dragon egg, last time we talked? Did you get it to hatch yet?” Hagrid looked sad all of a sudden.

“Oh ye. A student saw my baby, the lil’ Norbert, and Dumbledore send him to Romania.”   
That wasn’t quite the answer Helen had wanted to get.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Walking through a nearly deserted Hogwarts was strange. Helen wasn’t even sure if the teachers had stayed. She only knew that Dumbledore and McGonagall were still here, since they had said goodbye to the students leaving in the morning. Perhaps Snape had stayed, but Helen didn’t really care at the moment. She missed Draco a little, though.   
She’d write him one of these days, inquire how he was and what he’d gotten for Yule. Helen had given him her present already, it was just some muggle candy and a magical card game Draco hopefully didn’t know. She’d played the game once herself and thought it was very complicated for a card game, perhaps she’ll have to teach her friend.   
The Slytherin common room was completely silent and empty, save for the quiet noise of the fire.   
So much solitude was more the style of her old life, really. Now it seemed strange not be surrounded by talking children all the time.   
After retrieving all the things needed for her homework Helen took one of the desks and started to write the far too long essay, she had to get ready for Snape.   
Not even thinking about the time Helen started to describe all the details about the ingredient Snape had them researching, her notes laying beside her on the table. She didn’t notice the time passing by, and Snape entering the common room. Her mind was focused on the task at hand, blending other things out. A tunnel vision she had developed as a doctor researching the causes of illnesses of patients.

“Mister Potter, you are to come with me for questioning.” Helen froze in surprise by the snarling voice right behind her. For a second, she feared she’d flinched, but Snape didn’t make fun of her, that had to be a good sign. 

“Of course, professor.” She left her homework unattended, since no one could take it away, and followed Snape out of the common room through the halls into his office.

“Take a seat.” Helen did so and looked around, silently admiring the room. It was filled with portraits, moving silently from frame to frame to get a good look at her.   
Recognizing most of them as known, talented dark wizards, Helen had to hide a small smile. Snape obviously wanted to intimidate the students entering his office.   
The rest of the room was filled with Snape’s personal supplies of ingredients and many books, most of them about potions or the dark arts. It wasn’t forbidden to research the dark arts, not really, it was just not socially accepted. Snape took a seat behind his desk and looked over some papers laying around.

“Mister Potter”, Snape snarled and frowned at Helen, squinting his eyes at her calm demeanour, “As you know, Quirrell was last seen weeks ago returning to his chambers after his class. How is it, that just months after your arrival here at Hogwarts a teacher disappears out of nothing?”

“Professor, it’s not just me who arrived months ago, but every other student as well. You can’t possibly take that as a clue for my involvement with professor Quirrell’s disappearance.   
For the professor as a person… was it really such a surprise for him to vanish? He just came back from researching vampires before he got offered the job, right?   
Hagrid told me he hasn’t been the person everyone remembered him as. The headmaster must have thought of him as some sort of liability, or at the very least you.”   
She wasn’t about to insult Snape and let him think that she hadn’t thought about Snape getting her for questioning already. All students have talked about the questionings already. Some students even created some theories on where Quirrell might have ran off to. 

“You seem to have thought about your answer quite throughout. Are you sure you don’t have anything to do with him leaving?” 

“Of course, I am sure, professor. What could I have possibly done to make him leave?” A second after her answer, Snape looked her right in the eyes and Helen felt her head hurt. Different to the first time Snape had tried to read her thoughts, Helen felt him stop at one particular point at which the pain intensified slightly. There seemed to be a wall, stopping Snape from entering her mind and finding out about all her secrets. Helen’s eyes widened, just like Snape’s dark beetle eyes. They stared at each other, until Helen noticed the leverage she’s just gained over Snape. She had obviously caught him trying to read her thoughts, a practice forbidden to use on any person and especially as a professor on a student.

“I would advise you to stop, professor Snape.” Snape rushed up from his seat and strode over to lean over her ominously. 

“How did you learn Occlumency? You weren’t an Occlumens on the welcoming feast.” Helen leaned back slightly, staring angrily into Snape’s eyes. She took a collecting breath and gathered her thoughts. 

“I don’t consciously practice the art of Occlumency. I have no idea why you can’t influence my thoughts, not that you should, being a professor and all.” Snape continued to look deep into her eyes and tried penetrating her mind with Legilimency. After another fruitless try, he turned abruptly and went back to his seat. 

“You are excused, Mister Potter.”

Well, it’s nice to meet you, Sir, I guess I’ll go, I best be on my way out.”


	7. A demand

The morning after the incident with professor Snape was quiet and calm for Helen. Snape apparently hadn’t told Dumbledore anything about the happenings of the last night, because the old wizard had greeted her this morning with a nice, unknowing smile. Helen couldn’t tell why it looked unknowing to her, but otherwise she was sure he would have looked at her strangely.  
Not quite sure what to think about Dumbledore, Helen silently ate her breakfast. Hogwarts was decorated in golden and red colours, making it look a lot like the Gryffindors had just taken over the castle. The Weasleys were sitting on one side of the small table, talking animatedly with one another, while the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were on Helen’s side of the table, just a few seats away.   
That meant that Helen sat all alone on her end of the table, near the teachers that were already awake at this hour. Helen didn’t know why all students were up at this time of the day anyways, she had expected the hall to be empty. The only noise was coming from the group of redheads, though, otherwise it was quiet.   
Her green eyes had swept over the hall, not suspecting anything out of the ordinary to happen, until she saw the tail of a small animal peeking out of Ronald Weasley’s bag.   
With widening eyes Helen thought of Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather, sitting all alone in a cell in Azkaban for something he hadn’t done. Surrounded by Dementors and the cold, not knowing when he might see the light of the day again. She had always liked the slightly crazy man that seemed to love Harry so much that he even escaped Azkaban to meet him again. In that moment Helen had decided that she couldn’t leave him to fate. His mental wellbeing was at stake, and Helen intended to save him.   
Keeping herself calm, Helen returned to the Slytherin common room and took out her quill and a sheet of paper to write to the Ministry of Magic, or rather the Minister himself.  
Now Harry Potter was still a name associated with a hero, a lot different of the way people would perceive the name in years to come.   
In her letter she appealed to the Minister’s sense of duty to all wizards and witches to give all people a fair trial to decide their fault. That Sirius wasn’t given the choice to defend himself against the claims made by muggles who didn’t know anything about the world of wizards and witches.   
Harry Potter would not stand for a Ministry that throws his godfather into Azkaban without a trial. She demanded to be present at the hearing, and to bring evidence that Sirius was, indeed, not guilty of the murder of the muggles. Knowing that Remus Lupin would probably be present at the hearing as well, she wanted to ask him to speak on Sirius’s behalf as well, before she remembered that the werewolf had lived the last eleven years of his life believing that one of his best friends had betrayed all their other friends.   
After walking down the way to the owlery in the stormy weather this December day had brought with it, she started to craft a plan on how to get that nasty rat out of Ronald Weasley’s hands.  
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Yule day was utterly boring until one point. Helen had opened Draco’s presents for her and had written a letter for Hedwig to deliver back to him.  
What she really hoped for was a letter from the Ministry, accepting her demand for a trial for Sirius.   
If she had the affirmation, she could finally realise her plan and get Peter Pettigrew to his final trial. It was time to get her poor godfather out of that hell-hole. Sirius Black was one of the people who had loved Harry Potter without regard for anything else, without conditions until the very end. Helen longed for that love to be directed at her, at least in some way.   
There had to be a happy end in Sirius Black’s life. One without his death and Helen was sure she could provide the man with that. She wanted to safe him, just like she wanted to safe Draco and perhaps even Severus, if he’d prove himself not to be too much of a prick. Hopefully the dark man would do that in the near future, for Helen didn’t want to live with his verbal abuse for much longer.   
It bored her.   
Tom Riddle would be another person to save, but to succeed in doing that, a wonder had to happen.   
The man would be her last priority. The real question was if Helen would live long enough to protect the ones she wanted. It was a hard world in which she’d have to live in soon.   
A world programmed to hate her, to hate and question Harry Potter, but at the same time depend their existence on him.   
But now the future of all of magical Britain and possibly the whole of Europe depended on Helen. Not a cross she had wanted to bear at any time. 

 

Walking over Hogwarts’ grounds had proven to be utterly calming for Helen and relieve some of the burden she carried around with her on a daily basis.   
It had started to snow over the last days, and the thick snow covered most of the wide grass planes.   
Trying not to slip, Helen made her way down to the Great Lake, a place she loved to read at. Occasionally she was able to hear the fish and other creatures living in the lake breach the surface of the calm water, but now it was frozen, and Helen considered to go ice skating soon. Normally she didn’t really allow herself to spend her free time with hobbies or anything related to fun. She mostly read or practiced her magic performance. The easy spells for her grade were already too easy and now she had begun to practice doing them without her wand.   
It had proven to be easier than she had thought. A wand was really just there to channel the magic living inside a wizard. There were many ways to use it, moving a wand was one, the hand another. Helen was a prime example of a perfectionist, though. She wanted to perform her magic without any movement at all, a task she had set for herself to accomplish in the following years.   
Sitting down on a bench that was protected by a heating spell, Helen opened her book, just to look up and at the lake and not read it at all. It didn’t look anything like it did in Autumn.   
It looked friendlier, somehow. If a lake could even look menacing in the first place. Perhaps just less intimidating, especially with the knowledge that the kraken could not suddenly drag her into the deep water. Not that that was likely to happen either. Today her thoughts seemed to be all over the place. She couldn’t keep up these days.   
It was just too complicated to think everything through, and yet it was the most important thing she had to do. 

“Mister Potter, what got you out here loitering about?”, came a sneer from her side.

Helen closed her eyes in exhaustion for a moment. She really wanted to choke Snape now, and not in a sexy way. 

“Nothing, professor. Just reading.”, she answered back quietly, not really wanting to have a conversation with the young teacher.

“You can read? Your glasses are as thick as your father’s were. I reckon your skull might just be as thick too.” Helen let her eyes stare off into the wide distance. The freezing temperatures didn’t bother her, nor did Snape’s childish remarks about James Potter.

“If you say so, professor. If you’d excuse me, the want to read suddenly left me. How unsurprising.” Before Helen could step further away than a few steps, and hand reached out and grabbed her robes. 

“There is something going on with you, Potter, and I will find out what that is. You can’t fool me with your sleek behaviour. I know people like you.”   
The young boy turned back to face the professor, staring him dead in the eye. Snape’s black hair was falling him slightly into his eyes, and Helen felt the need to reach out and tuck it behind his ears. Her gentle feelings towards the teacher were strange. The need to protect him and Draco had confused her from the moment she had first realised that that was exactly what she felt the need to do. Towards Draco it was an understandable feeling, but Snape had been nothing but a nuisance until now, no matter how good he looked in her opinion. Helen felt Snape prod at her mind shields again and scowled lightly. It gave her headaches. 

“If I’m a bad person, then don’t like me. I don’t care about your opinion of me, professor, nor your suspicion towards me. May I also remind you that you attempted to enter my had numerous times now without my consent. You could be sent to Azkaban for that.” There was a lot of confusion and shock on Snape’s face and he mirrored Helen’s scowl. With a violent movement he pulled away from her form and stepped back some steps. 

“You don’t make any sense, Potter. I didn’t say anything.” 

Now Snape was really suspicious, and Helen was confused. The man hadn’t said anything? But she had heard him loud and clearly. She furrowed her eyebrows and her knuckles turned white holding the book she had gotten at the library close to her flat chest. 

“If you say so, prof- ““What are you up to, Potter?” Now Helen took half a step back and her eyes narrowed. Everything about this afternoon was just so strange.   
She had heard Snape again, but this time not seen his lips move. There was no sign of a trick being played on her. Looking up into her professor’s face, the man didn’t seem to have noticed her hesitance.

“It would be best for me to leave now, professor. I am not feeling well.” Did Snape think of her as a real threat now? 

That would be most unfortunate, given her plans. After she had crossed the distance between the path leading up the castle and the still frozen-in-place Potions professor, Helen began to fasten her steps soon running through the dungeons back to the common room. When she entered her room, Hedwig sat on the chair beside her bed.   
Helen didn’t know how the owl had found her way into the dungeons and her room, but the wax-sealed letter was of more importance to her now.   
She was still panting slightly when she fed the beautiful white owl some snacks and proceeded to get the letter off her strong leg.   
It was a heavy envelope with the thick wax emblem of the Ministry. Forcing herself to calm down she took a small knife and opened the letter with care. Unfolding the many pieces of paper, Helen began to read over the many words written to her. 

“What utter cocks.” 

Her demand had found acceptance, but the trial was to be held when school would begin again for her, and that meant that they didn’t want her attending the trial and getting Sirius out of there. It was supposed to be a farce of a trial, only for the paper work to be done correctly this time.   
Swallowing, Helen could only think of one person who could successfully get Dumbledore to agree to let Helen attend the trial. Someone with an obvious sense of right and wrong, whom she trusted to fight for her on that account. Talking to Dumbledore directly was the thing she had immediately decided against. The old wizard had made many mistakes over Harry’s lifetime, some of them were unforgivable. He had decided to let Harry die for the greater good. Dumbledore obviously had some kind of power complex to have the audacity to rule over Harry’s life like that.   
A teacher that had always fought on Harry’s side, though, was Minerva McGonagall, someone Helen could really trust.


	8. A momentous trial

“I don’t understand, Mister Potter. Why would you request a trial for Sirius Black? He’s a mass murderer. I don’t see why you should miss school lessons for someone like him.” Helen had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. As a child no one really took you seriously.

“Sirius Black was sentenced to a life in Azkaban without a trial, that alone should be reason enough to demand a trial in the first place. Professor, I know that he is my godfather as well-.” McGonagall interrupted him quite uncharacteristically.

“How did you get that information?” Taking a deep breath, Helen leaned forwards suspiciously and looked deep into the teacher’s eyes. Suddenly she felt the beginnings of a headache, quite similar to the ones she got when Snape tried to enter her mind and looked somewhere else.

“Why, is that secret information, professor? I wasn’t aware that I’m allowed to neither know who my closest of family is, nor care about them if I do find out. I had hoped you might understand my want to be close to him and at least try to prove his innocence. If my parents trusted him to become my godfather, I trust him not to be guilty.” McGonagall took a deep breath, just as Helen had done before and sighed lowly. She suddenly looked years older, more like someone who had lived through tough times. Helen had to treat McGonagall a little more careful, since the old witch was very smart and wasn’t afraid to question Harry Potter.

“It is not a secret, no. Though, I have to say that I don’t appreciate your sass, Mister Potter. I do understand where you’re coming from. Perhaps you should have rather gone to your head of house with your request.” Nodding her head, Helen adjusted to sit on the edge of her seat, laying her hands on the table.

“You know what professor Snape thinks of me, professor. Especially what he thinks of Sirius as well. He’d never give me the chance to take back what is mine.” At the possessive words, the Gryffindor head of house looked up at Helen with a raised eyebrow, silently evaluating Helen, or rather the version of Harry Potter that sat before her. Helen knew that she was nothing like Lily Evans or James Potter. They were complete strangers to her and had no idea on how to act as if she was even a little like either one of them.

“Alright, Potter. Do keep in mind that I only allow this because of your outstanding grades. Should you decide to let my leniency influence your performance in school you will have to deal with the consequences.” Grinning widely, Helen nodded eagerly, feeling elevated.

After thanking her new favourite teacher, Helen left McGonagall’s office and was skipping down the halls in search of something fun to do. The Yule holidays were about to end, which really improved Helen’s mood these days. It was awfully boring without there being people to judge silently or meaningless things to talk about with Draco. Visiting him wouldn’t be a good idea just yet. She had been reading too much and regularly thought that her vocal cords had to rust because of her lack of talking. Normally Helen had Draco to amuse her. Perhaps Helen was a little dependent on his company. It was just quite lonely to always sit alone in the library. With that revelation Helen turned to the left corridor on the seventh floor and thought hard about what she needed most in this moment. A place to practice.

Her apprenticeship in the Hospital wing with Madame Pomfrey had been going good as well. Since there were no students around to treat, the medic-witch had started to teach Helen all about healing properties of certain potions and spell, and of course the side-effects that most brought with them. It was a good begin for Helen’s quest of protecting. To protect, the most important thing was to know how to cure, the power to destroy one’s enemies would come with time.

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Seeing Draco again was a relief. Her days seemed to become brighter again, they contained more fun and laughter. Helen noticed again how much her behaviour and mood followed Draco’s presence. Whether they’d sit together silently to read or walk through the hallways talking about the happening of the day. Draco had told her all about his presents and how Yule morning was celebrated at their manor.

“And how have you been spending Yule? I can’t imagine celebrating it in school, it must have been terribly boring.”, Draco snapped in the end. He’d been prissy all day due to an unsatisfactory grade in his Divination class. Divination was Draco’s least favourite class and always send him into a mood for most of the afternoon.

“It was fine, I believe. I have never celebrated Yule anyway.” After some seconds of silence Draco laid down his quill and looked shocked.

“But why not? It’s a great reason to celebrate!”

Helen shrugged and continued to write down the answers to the assignment they’d been given by Flitwick.

“My relatives aren’t fond of me. They kept me locked up in a cupboard for most of my life. They are also not familiar with the concept of Yule. They did celebrate Christmas. It’s the Muggle equivalent of Yule, I believe.” Shuddering when thinking about Harry Potter’s fate, Helen squinted her eyes up to watch Draco’s reaction. It seemed that the blond boy didn’t quite know what to say, so Helen decided to change the subject.

“I’m sure you know about Sirius Black?” Draco narrowed his eyes in confusion but nodded, nonetheless.

“He is my mother’s first cousin and a crazy mass murderer rotting away in Azkaban. Why do you ask?”

“If I tell you, you will have to promise not to tell anyone.” Helen’s look was hard and calculating, intimidation Draco a little bit and getting her seriousness across. His grey eyes had widened again, staring at her full of innocent wonder. His slicked-back hair was rocking slightly when he nodded again, more forcefully this time.

“Good. He is my godfather, and I believe him to be innocent. That’s why I will miss a few days of school in the coming week. Don’t be alarmed if you can’t reach me for that time either, yes?” After a minute of silence Draco had closed his gaping mouth again and stared to chuckle quietly.

“You are really something else, Harry. Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul, I swear by my honour.” Helen felt a heavy realisation settle in. She could trust Draco Malfoy with her secrets. Perhaps even with her most valued one. Her eyebrows drew together, and she reached over the table to grab Draco’s hand.

“Thank you.” A wave of emotions swirled inside her as she put away her things to make a fast exit, leaving a confused Draco.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

It was the day of Sirius’ trial and Helen was on her way walking beside professor McGonagall who had offered to walk with her. Inside her cloak, Helen felt the weight of Ron’s unconscious rat. When she had cast the spell, it had been hard not to outright kill the creature. Wormtail was so vulnerable in this form, so easy to hurt. It wouldn’t have helped Sirius, though, and that was her biggest concern now.

“This is where I have to leave you, Mister Potter, as I am not cleared to attend the trial.” Helen nodded understandingly and wanted to enter after thanking her teacher one more time, when the old witch held her back and held a heavy eye contact.

“I really hope that you will win this trial, Potter. If not for Mister Black, then for you. I presume you know what would happen if Black was sentenced to be guilty after all, do you not?” The blame to have held an unnecessary trial in favour of a already sentenced mass murderer would fall on Harry Potter. His reputation would be tarnished before the game had even really started. On the other side, his reputation would bloom should the truth be revealed.

“I do not hope, professor. I will win this trial, trust me.” Helen gave the wrinkly hand on her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and smiled lightly. That calmed the witch drastically, and Helen’s shoulder was released.

“Well then, I wish you a successful trial nonetheless.”

The guard standing before the door eyed Helen before he opened the door, and the room got quiet when she entered. The many Ministry employees were already sitting on their seats and many other seats were filled by journalists. The Minister was also already present on his seat, towering over the others.

“Minister.”, Helen acknowledged the older man with a nod and went to take a seat on the row for witnesses. The cage in the middle of the room was still empty, but it was promising to bear one of the most important people in Harry Potter’s, and thus Helen’s life.

“Mister Potter! It is just a pleasure to meet. My readers and I have heard and read so much about you. Would you mind answering a few questions for me? My name is Rita Skeeter, I write for the Daily Prophet!” Helen turned her eyes and glared at the woman without moving her face. The unregistered Animagus was a nuisance Helen didn’t want any contact with.

“I would prefer not. If you still want to, we can answer all your questions after the trial.” The raven-haired boy didn’t think that after the trial the journalist would want any further contact with Helen.

Suddenly, the room got quiet again and a person with a dirty bag over their head was transported through the room and into the cage. When the bag was removed and everyone could see the thin, weary face of Sirius Black, the sharp arrows of the cage moved and forced the prisoner to stand straight. Panicked eyes locked on the Minister and other high standing employees with fear and desperation. Long, spidery fingers clenched around the metal bars while Sirius’ breathing began to accelerate.

“Sirius Black, on trial for betraying the location of James and Lily Potter, being a loyal follower of You-Know-Who, the killing of twelve Muggles and the murder of Peter Pettigrew. He has already been imprisoned in Azkaban for 10 years without a trial. That error we now seek to correct, as he will receive a fair trial today.” Helen could practically feel the confusion rolling off the poor man. The first few witnesses made their points against Sirius, until a name was called that chilled Helen to the bone.

“Today we call Remus Lupin to court. A life-long friend of Black who has requested to help us to find out the truth.” Remus Lupin didn’t look any better than Sirius and Helen’s heart ached. The two men were destined to be together. To see one of them condemn the other to stay in Azkaban now was devastating. Sirius made a sound of pain when he spotted his old friend who frowned at him. Helen had to hold back not to run and knock some sense into the werewolf.

“Sirius Black was my friend. He was our friend. When James and Lily went to hide, there was only one who could speak of their location. Of course, it was Sirius, he has always been James’ best friend. There was no one else who could have told You-Know-Who of James’ and Lily’s whereabouts. He killed our friends.” In the end, tears had gathered in the werewolf’s tired eyes and his posture had drawn in on himself. His shoulders we slumped in and dirty brown hair fell into Remus’ face to hide his pain.

Sirius had begun to cry openly know. Broken by his former friends’ distrust and testimony. Next was Helen’s turn, and after her name got called, the room got quiet again. The only thing that was heard was Sirius’ heavy, unbelieving gasp. Slowly Helen walked around the cage, deciding not to sit beside the Minster as a witness, but to remain standing beside her godfather. She wanted to make sure that everyone in the room knew on who’s side she stood.

“Harry! Harry. Believe me, I didn’t do it. I could have never done that to James and Lily! Please Harry, listen to me!” When the prisoner had been quiet for the first half of the trial, now he was anything but. Pleading with Helen to understand that he didn’t do it, that he indeed was innocent of betraying Harry’s parents.

After some minutes of listening his panicking yells, Helen went closer to the cage and took hold of Sirius’ cold hand. Squeezing people’s hands was very reassuring, Helen knew.

“I know that you are innocent, Sirius. Believe me, I will get you out of here. We will get out of here.” There were whispers in the ranks of people listening to their small exchange of words.

“And how will you do that, Mister Potter? All evidence has been against the convict, until now. I doubt that you can really change anything anymore.”

At the blatant disrespect, Helen ripped her eyes off of the eyes of her still crying godfather.

“You have been lied to by so many, Minister. You lie in return, and nothing you do holds weight. To open your eyes to the truth, I brought someone who should have been the prisoner instead of Sirius Black.” With vigour she took the rat out of her cloak and threw it on the ground, waking it from the spell. Before Pettigrew could escape, a guard had cast another stunning spell, looking to the Minister and back to Helen for instructions.

“Cast a Homorphus charm and see who it is.”, was all Helen had to say, still holding onto Sirius’ trembling hand. When the guard cast the charm, and the people of the court saw Peter Pettigrew lying on the floor, still bound by the spell, outraged yells came from every side. Helen cast a special eye on Remus’ reaction, who’s face blanched and a hand went up to cover his mouth in horror.

After they had the traitor bound to a chair and presented for all of the court to see, Helen spoke again: “You see, not everything is how we want it to be. It was so easy to just sentence Sirius without a second thought. The war had just been won and no one wanted to deal with its spoils for another second. But think about the costs. This will make rounds and your reputation will be tarnished all over the world, Minister. Everyone will know how Britain’s Minster of Magic sentenced an innocent man without trial to a life in Azkaban. Sirius Black had given the position of the secret keeper to Peter, because Sirius was too obvious of a choice. It must have been the finest moment of his miserable life, telling Voldemort he could hand him the Potters.” Reciting some of Sirius’s words to Wormtail, Helen felt a great moment was happening right in that room. Her first public act as Harry Potter had been a success, and had been an obvious move against the Minister, and thus the whole Ministry.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Waiting in a small room with only two sofas, Helen couldn’t really believe what just happened. She would always tell people to believe her, that she could help them. As a doctor or as a friend, she was a protector, someone who helped others. That would always be what she wanted to do. There were other sides to her too, of course. The side that had killed Quirrell, and the side that lied to everyone about who she really was. Sometimes it was hard to decide how she wanted to act, but that had always just been life. Now all she could do was wait, as Sirius was being clothed and given back all his rights as the head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. After that, Helen would return with him to the Black house. They would talk, Helen would care for him, and after a couple of days she would have to return to Hogwarts.  

The small door on her left was pushed open violently and suddenly she was enveloped in frail, shaking arms and lifted up to be cuddled. Helen left a surprised little yell, as she had not been lifted up like that in ages. Instinctively her arms wrapped around Sirius’ neck as not to fall and one of her hand went up to pet over his unwashed, shaggy hair. The smell he emitted wasn’t the nicest either, but Helen just had to breath through that little pain and enjoy the moment of closeness with her godfather.  
  
“What did I do to deserve you, Prongslet?” Helen smiled into her new guardian’s neck and calmly resumed her petting.

“I just felt like you needed a fresh sniff of air. Can’t have you spending too much time away from me.” Helen’s body was squeezed some more before Sirius’ legs gave out and he fell onto his knees, still holding onto his new charge.

“How were you able to do that, Prongslet? How did you _know-_?” Taking a deep breath, Helen extracted herself a little to look into Sirius’ tired face. His eyes were still red, and some tears leaked down his hollow cheeks still. Thumbing them away, Helen smiled mysteriously.

“I will tell you some other time, Sirius. Let’s get out of here first, yes? I want to go home.” With a sharp exhale of air, Sirius nodded enthusiastically with a wide grin on his face and stood up again, leading them out of the Ministry into the first fireplace that could bring them to 12 Grimmauld Place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the end of the first Hogwarts year.   
> I hate writing with a child character, there can be no sexy times!


	9. A heady shopping tour

The summer break was a great thing, Helen had always known that. Now, living with Sirius Black in a house that was basically infested with dark magic and plenty of illegal magical objects just lying about, life got a lot more interesting. Upon returning to Hogwarts after two days of trying to settle Sirius in as best as she could, every student had already heard about Helen’s triumph in the trial. After getting a good punch from Ronald Weasley, who didn’t seem to appreciate Helen taking his dear rat from him, she had resumed her daily life and exceeded in the final exams. The results hadn’t been sent to the families yet, but Helen was sure that she got everything right.

School shouldn’t really play an important role in her new life, but it somehow still affected her negatively when she got a grade less than Outstanding. If she should for some reason decide to take on Arithmancy as a course in her third grade, the bad grades would come crushing down again. If she wasn’t mistaken, Arithmancy was some kind of math course, the one subject she was complete rubbish at. She really just survived her school years with a lot of practice and spending too much time with math tutors. It was relieving to be good at the other subjects, that meant that her free time just went into learning for one subject.

For Helen it was no big hassle to prepare some food every now and then. They had Kreacher, but the house elf was set on hating her, which wasn’t really surprising after all. That meant that Helen wanted as little contact with the bitter elf as possible. Preparing their dinner for that evening, she was just cutting some vegetables when she heard the rough voice of Sirius from the doorway.

“You don’t really act your age, do you? James wasn’t like you at all, you seem to come more after Lily, she was always the responsible one, taking care of James and I. None of us could really cook.” Helen stopped shortly, looking over her shoulder to see Sirius leaning against the doorframe with crossed arms, looking as if he was hugging himself. He was looking a lot better after he had been to some professional healers who had given him various potions to recover. Helen had been given some as well, to help with Harry’s previous malnourishment. She had grown quite a bit already and was sure to hit a growth spurt in no time now that her body was on average weight for her height.

“I think we have a lot in common. I had to grow up a lot faster, living with the Dursleys. You were in Gryffindor like my father, right? It must have been hard, returning to a family that has been in Slytherin for generations. Having made friends on the light side must also have been… challenging.” Sirius fixed her eyes with a deep, searching look, until his face lit up by a small, tired smile. The tiredness didn’t leave his eyes at all. Helen really hoped that he would recover a lot better than in the books.

“You are quite witty, Harry. No wonder you got sorted into Slytherin. You are right, though. My mother was less than pleased by me, that’s why I ran away. I lived with James for my last year of school, I was always welcome at the Potter’s.” The older man looked reminiscent of that time, when the little things seemed to big.

“I can show you the family tree. My mother shot away my face after I ran. Can’t have anyone speak of the broken sons of Black. But you have met my mother, a kind lady.” Of course, Sirius was referring to the always whining and yelling portrait of Walburga Black. Soon they would remove it and set a few renovations in motion. The tapestry in some rooms was singed or ripped off, the old wood of the floor was squeaky and broken in some places. The murky windows had to be cleaned as well, quite a lot of work for the summer. Helen continued her cutting and asked Sirius to set the table for them both. Eating together would let them bond much faster, and it was a good opportunity to talk.

The weeks were going by and Sirius and Helen had begun to clean up the house a little bit. At first Sirius wanted to get rid of all the dark artefacts left by his family, but Helen’s insistence on wanting to study them to learn more about all kinds of magic left him with little choice. They had been getting along well, but that wasn’t really a surprise. Helen held a lot of fondness for the Black ever since she first read about him. It was hard to explain. On evenings they had started to play chess and Sirius had started to try to get Helen to ride a broom. With Helen’s fear of heights that wouldn’t be a very successful. One day Helen had cut Sirius’ hair up to his ears to let it regrow healthier. Having done that while the man slept on one of the sofas, Sirius wasn’t too excited about it, but laughed it off in the end. Now Sirius was bored most of the days and had taken to read up on happenstances. Soon it would be time to get Helen’s school supplies, and the wizard was looking forward to his first public outing, Helen could tell. The man was eager to become part of society again and Helen would help him all the way. The second year would be one of the less exciting ones for Helen. She had decided to stay put for most of the time and only intervene in the end to rescue Ginny Weasley and stop Tom Riddle. If she would change too much, there was the danger that the timeline would change indefinitely and that would cause some problems. Now she had the leverage of knowing what was going to happen for most of the happenings. That leverage should not go to waste, for all she cared.

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“It is just as I remember it! Look over there I got my first broom, and there you get the best ice cream in London!”, Sirius pointed to one store and held Helen’s shoulder as to not lose her in the hassle of all the people walking through Diagon Alley. The street hadn’t changed at all since her last visit, and seemingly not since Sirius’ either. It let a melancholic feeling curse through her. Everything had begun on this street. It was like a birthplace of her new life. Frowning a little, one hand went up to run it through her short, black hair feeling the soft strands of thick hair. Helen missed her blond hair, it had always been a feature she liked about herself, along with her figure and face. Her opinion about herself had been quite high and still was.

Like she had predicted, a growth spurt had hit her over the last few weeks, and she had to be a little taller than her classmates now. As a little girl she had always wanted to be taller than average for girls. In her late teens she had realised that being of average height had advantages as well. Now as a guy that was something else. Being taller was normally considered an attractive trait, something she desired to be again. If she couldn’t be a classy, good looking woman, she wanted to be a classy, good looking guy.

 

Sirius’ hand felt rough on hers. He had adjusted himself to be of her new height and looked at her inquisitively. The man was quite observant with her, she had noticed.  
“Is there something wrong, Harry? You don’t want to go home already, do you?” The black-haired man obviously enjoyed his time out and didn’t want to go home already.

“Of course not, Sirius. Don’t worry, we can go wherever you want to.” The smile she got was a little reluctant, and Helen probably knew why.

“Good. Shall we get your school supplies first and ear some ice-cream after? I think you need some new clothing as well, you got so tall!” Sirius’ look changed over his words from hesitant to proud and happy. Helen smiled at him, glad that he seemed to do better, especially while being in public like this.

Together they went to get all the new cauldrons, other equipment, new quills and some clothing that actually fit Helen again. The fabric was much nicer than before, since Sirius insisted to only pay for the best when it came to his godson. When they were done with all those necessities, they noticed how crowded it had gotten over the last hour. There were many people making their way through Diagon Alley, all with one goal. Flourish and Blotts was completely swarmed with people, keen to catch a look of the famous author and adventurer who visited that day.

With dread Helen remembered the horrid new teacher she would have to endure for the new school year. At least this one wasn’t connected to Voldemort in any way. Dealing with Riddle was another thing she had to do this year. For that to happen successfully she had to prepare a few things first, though. Planning to do those before entering the train to Hogwarts this year, Helen made her way to the bookstore with Sirius walking behind her as to not lose sight.

“Do you know who that guy is, Prongslet? Fancy dresses he has, doesn’t look like much of anything else, though.” A small chuckle escaped Helen at that comment, and she felt Sirius’ eyes on her again.

“His name is Gilderoy Lockhart. He did some things and wrote books about it. Don’t pay him too much attention. Let’s look for books.” Sirius and Helen made their way to the schoolbook section of the store, Sirius getting the needed books while Helen strolled around to look for something that might be interesting. She was patiently looking for Draco as well. He should be on the second floor of the building. Telling Sirius about her whereabouts, she quickly climbed the stairs and a big smile found its way onto her face. Draco was leaning on the handrail, looking down onto the crowd. Silently she advanced behind him, before she gently grabbed his sides and made a surprising noise. The blond boy jumped violently and turned to face her with an angry scowl, which melted away when he recognised her.

“Harry! Since when are you here? I haven’t seen you enter.” Helen’s smile didn’t seem to go away, and Draco caught it too, smiling just as brightly at her. It made her feel good, that Draco could smile so carelessly in this world, and wasn’t as bitter and angry as in the original. She wanted him to be a kid as long as she was able to grant him that. With her friends in her old life, her female friends, she would have definitely hugged him longer that she did now. It was just a short bro-hug. Hopefully she would be able to hug him longer in the future, when the boy got more comfortable with her.

“I came a few minutes ago with my godfather. Sirius is downstairs searching for my schoolbooks, if you want to meet him?” Draco nodded a bit reluctant but trusted her enough not to lead him to a mass murderer.

“Of course. My father has to be around somewhere as well…” But Helen had met the Malfoy patriarch already, and she remembered quite vividly how annoyed the meeting had left her. Walking down the stairs, Helen noticed that she was almost half a head taller than Draco, and she smiled again.

When reaching Sirius, the man had already paid for the books and watched the show Lockhart was putting on for his fans. Just before they got to him, some heads turned to two people shouting at each other. The only thing they could see was red and light blond hair flying through the air, and angry insults getting thrown around. With dread Helen remembered Arthur’s and Lucius’ fight in the bookstore, caused by the bratty behaviour of the older Malfoy. Before much more could happen, Draco had raced over to his father, who was being held back by one of Hagrid’s big hands. The other hand held Arthur Weasley, and both adults were still insulting each other like vigorously.

Taking Sirius’ calloused hand in her smaller one, Helen dragged the man abruptly from his place and both entered the fighting field to calm things down a little.

“Draco, I don’t believe you have met my godfather. Sirius, this is Draco Malfoy, my best friend. Draco, this is Sirius Black, my godfather.” All heads turned to Helen, and she smiled feebly. Draco came forward a little and shook Sirius’ hand, who looked at him with a certain amount of resignation. Helen had told him about her friend long ago, and Sirius had been nothing if not accepting until now.

Before neither Draco nor Sirius could properly greet each other, the snake knob of Lucius’ cane landed on Draco’s shoulder, and the man came forward. His lip was split and hair in disarray, but he still managed to look haughty.

“Harry Potter and Sirius Black. Draco told me all about you, Mister Potter. Sadly, I was out of the country at the time of the trial, I would have liked to see you defend a blood traitor from the Minister.” Draco was noticeably uncomfortable with his father talking like that to his friend.

“There is no need to fret, Mister Malfoy. I intend to defend a lot more people from worse. I think we would leave you to your-“ Helen looked pointedly at the fuming Weasley still standing beside Hagrid, who exchanged a quick smile with Helen. “Business and end our shopping tour with some ice-cream. Draco, if you would like to join us?” With a look to his father for permission, Draco nodded nonetheless, and Helen was the first to turn and leave the store. Thankfully Lockhart hadn’t spotted them anywhere. She could have sworn that Sirius left the older Malfoy with some departing words but didn’t know what they were.

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Standing in the old shack, Helen thought about the curse that laid on the item she wanted to retrieve. The charm on the shack had been difficult to diffuse anyway, but the curse that had Dumbledore in panic and Snape at his wits ends was making her unbelievably suspicious of everything around her.

The Gaunt family didn’t really have a lot to it in the end. Tom Riddle’s crazy uncle Morfin Gaunt had been the only surviving member other than Tom himself, and now both were dead.

Well, kind of.

Tom Riddle was about to come back, even if not really as Tom Riddle.


	10. A new pain

After retrieving what she wanted, Helen had made her way back to her new home. Not anticipating how Sirius would react to her unannounced departure.

Normally she would have told him, but it was still integrated in her brain that she was an adult who could do whatever she wanted without having to tell anyone beforehand and ask for permission. Suddenly she was put into a position she hadn’t been in for a long time. With Sirius standing over her and looking as if he’d seen a ghost, with big, worried eyes and pale skin, his hair falling into his face, she felt as chastised as she had when she had been young and stupid, doing things she wasn’t supposed to. It was a confusing feeling. That someone in this universe really cared about her now. Someone who didn’t know a different Harry Potter, only her. When she started to smile into Sirius’ face, the adult stopped his ranting and crouched down a little.

“Harry, you have to tell me when you leave the house. I nearly woke up the old hag!” Helen’s smile widened and she nodded slowly.

“I’m sorry, Sirius. I’m not used to people caring where I am. I will remember to tell you of my whereabouts in the future.” The black-haired Black seemed to be satisfied with that answer and they went about their day as usual.

 

Sleeping in strange places wasn’t difficult for Helen, it had never been. Now was the time that she wouldn’t consider the Black house a strange place anyway. It was the only place she could call home in this world. The thing that was unsettling her, were Sirius’ screams in the night. Helen wasn’t used to be very empathetic towards anyone but herself. And she didn’t feel strongly about most things.

Annoyance was the most felt feeling.

She knew annoyance, knew how to deal with it. But Sirius’ screams were those of fear. Fear just wasn’t something she felt a lot. At the beginning of her job she had felt a kind of fear when talking to the relatives of deceased patients. Another scream tore through the otherwise quiet house. Helen wasn’t good at consoling people, but for Sirius she wanted to step out of her comfort zone to help him.

Walking through the dark corridors of the house, the old wood creaked under Helen’s feet. The portraits followed her movements, like they always did. It was unsettling to always be watched in this house, even if not all the portraits were able to talk. Sirius had told her, that he suspected some of them were hiding treasures behind them. Perhaps he’d just said that to entice her about living with him in this old and spooky house. She passed doors that had been locked for years and not been entered by anyone but perhaps Kreacher.

Sirius’ bedroom was at the end of the hallway, the door out of dark and heavy wood, sealed only by a simple lock. Concentrating hard on the feeling of magic flowing through her body, a misty substance that would run through her fingers like quicksilver if materialised, Helen waved her hand over the lock of Sirius’ door, and heard the quiet click of it opening. Her fingertips felt a little burned, but the magic was still there, letting her body tingle. The house would protect her magic usage from being detected by the Ministry.

Opening the door and entering the room, Helen made out the sheets lying on the floor beside the bed and Sirius squirming around on the sheets. Her mind didn’t want to enter the room further, sensing the coming confrontation with someone’s pain and not knowing how to deal with it. Nevertheless, she stepped further inside. Touching the cool silk of the sheets, Helen sat at the side and watched him for a few seconds. It was concerning how much pain she could see etched onto his face. Slowly reaching forward, she started to pet down his sweaty curls in soft motions, as not to outright wake him. A whimper left Sirius’ mouth and tears began to run down his hollow cheeks. He looked a lot like he had when she first saw him at the trial, just much more vulnerable in his sleep.

She started to make a calming shush noise and laid down beside him, still petting his hair and caressing his face with light touches. Her mother used to do that to her when she was a little child and wasn’t feeling too great.

 

In the morning Helen was awoken by Sirius moaning while waking up as well, stretching his body to lose the remaining sleepiness. Watching him through tired, green eyes she waited until he noticed her lying beside him. His eyes widened, before they shot to the slightly open door, through which cold air entered the room.

“How did you get in here, Prongslet? And why, were you scared or anything? You could have woken me up!”

“I heard you screaming.” She saw his body tensing, and his eyes shot to the door again.

“There is a charm on my room, Prongslet, and I locked it.” Now wearing an innocent expression on her youthful face, Helen shrugged and sat up.

“I just heard you, Sirius. I was worried and came to comfort you.” Sirius looked worried now, and started to dress himself for the day, mumbling quietly.

“Doesn’t matter now! You know what day it is, right?” Helen was quite clueless on what day it was. She always lost count when she was on holidays.

“It’s your birthday, Harry! Surely you can’t forget that!”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Harry Potter’s twelfth birthday had been great. Sirius had prepared many presents, most of them books, some magical objects and a brand-new broom. She had let him know about her fear of height previously, but the man seriously wanted to teach her how to fly a broom right, especially with her Flying class having ended without her doing any actual flying. Harry Potter was expected to attend his second year at Hogwarts now, and Helen stood at the station, saying her goodbyes to Sirius and Kreacher, who had come with them after much swearing. Her suitcase felt especially heavy that day, knowing what items she was carrying with her. She had visited the drawing room in Grimmauld Place, which had not been cleaned yet. Next on the list was the Room of Requirements.

Sharing a compartment with only Draco would have been nice, but sadly the boy had insisted that his other friends from Slytherin join them both. Helen hadn’t talked to a lot of students other than Draco and sometimes Hermione. Pansy Parkinson was staring at her with disgust when she entered the compartment, calling for Draco. The blond boy beside her had invited her, just like his friends Blaise and Theodore. Blaise was quite smart and perhaps a person she could have a nice conversation with, but Helen just didn’t have any interest to make any new friends. More friends meant more questions.

“So, you are the great Harry Potter, eh? Don’t look so great from what I can see.” Helen wouldn’t let her eyes stray from her book and just nodded a little, rising an eyebrow at the childish insult.

“You don’t even need to talk with us, right? We are too unimportant for the great Harry Potter. Can you believe this, Draco? Your half-blood friend doesn’t think we’re worthy of his attention!” How Draco could stand to be around that girl was past Helen.

“Do shut up, Pansy.”, said Blaise. Helen had noticed him looking at her before, waiting for a reaction to Pansy’s teasing. Helen looked up from her book and blinked at Blaise, a very subtle way to thank him. Blaise smiled at her, then, and started a conversation with the quiet Theodore Nott, who had been watching them all for the better part of the train ride.

Sighing, Helen looked from Blaise and Theodore to Draco who sat on her right.

“What do you see in that girl?”, Draco just looked at her with an annoyed face. Helen had to hold back a smirk. The blond didn’t seem to appreciate his friend insulting her and was now annoyed to be called out on their friendship.

“Father said a friendship with her would be beneficial to out families. I don’t know her well.” Their conversation was hushed, as not to alarm the girl in question sitting in front of them both, reading a book. At least she didn’t seem to be too stupid.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Sitting back on her small bed with Draco on the other side of the room felt a little strange. She knew why it felt familiar, but she couldn’t really believe that it was her second year at Hogwarts already. A school that shouldn’t really exist.

“Draco, how do you like Hogwarts?” She saw the boy stop in his movements for a second, and he turned to her with his eyebrows drawn together.

“Why do you want to know?” Helen shrugged and looked around their room. It was dark, only slightly lit by some candles floating over their heads. They had two round windows through which they could observe the fish and other beings living in the lake. The murky water left the room in a slightly green glow reflected by the stone walls.

“I just really like it here. It’s like a completely different world here. Different from everything I’ve seen before.” Draco looked around for a second before he shrugged a little helpless.

“It’s alright here. You should see my house sometime, it’s far better there, it’s almost as old as Hogwarts, since my family is so old.” After a few seconds he added; “You think too much for our age. You have such a busy head. I wouldn’t trade with you.”

That brought a smile onto Helen’s face and she reached for Draco to join him in her bed. After the boy had joined her on the first night at Hogwarts, they had only slept in one bed when Draco had been feeling down because of disappointing lessons or bad assignments. The Malfoy heir seemed to take their shared warmth as a comfort and reassurance of some sort.

A blush appeared on Draco’s cheeks, like every time they did this. Helen just chuckled before she grabbed his hand and forcefully drew him onto the sheets. The next grab was for the pillow, which she threw against the side of Draco’s face, leaving him dumbfounded.

“What did you just do?” The question was asked unbelieving and breathless.

“I just doomed you to death by combat. You must fight for your life!”

The night ended in many giggles and confused classmates listening to the ruckus coming from the room of The-Boy-Who-Lived and the infamous Malfoy heir.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Some weeks into the second year, the first muggleborn student had been found.

Lockhart had opened his duelling club, without Helen attending. Of course, that didn’t leave the horrendous teacher’s notice, and she was called to stay with him after class. Taking a deep breath, Helen steeled herself for her first private conversation with the blond locked teacher.

“Oh Harry! How good to see that you followed my invitation to stay here, who wouldn’t anyway?” There was a silence before he began to speak again, no less confident in himself.

“I noticed that you haven’t been joining me and your fellow students in the duelling club after lessons! Why is that?”

Helen shrugged and threw her books in her bag.

“I don’t know. It’s not a compulsory club, is it? By omitting, I get to spend more time for things I like.” That left the teacher with a twitching eyebrow and a small amount of hate in his eyes.

“Well, if you are so uninterested in practicing your duelling abilities, I will make it an obligatory course just for you. I look forward to having the great Harry Potter at my next lesson!” Now Helen felt disrespected, somehow. She had given a legitimate answer why she didn’t want to join the club, why would the idiot not just let it go. With two small but menacing steps, she came closer to Lockhart and leaned down to him still sitting at his desk.

“Did Dumbledore tell you what happened to the last professor that taught DADA? I have noticed that nobody really talks about all the things happening to the respective teachers in your position. If I were you, I would lookout for myself and not make many enemies.” Turning abruptly, Helen closed her eyes in annoyance at herself. That little stunt would not leave anyone any less suspicious of her. She couldn’t give a shit about what that pillock thought of her.

 

Standing besides Draco, Helen watched two students from Ravenclaw duel each other. The spells they used were wisely picked, but the execution was dreadful. Lockhart stood at the side and clapped after each draw, making the swooning girls behind him imitate him.

Draco looked bored as well. The duel had been going on for too long already, and just by watching them the learning aspect shrunk to a minimum. After some more spells being fired, Snape ended the duel and declared that none of them had won. Lockhart didn’t seem very happy about Snape taking initiative and he stepped in front of the dark-haired teacher. Helen narrowed her eyes at the blatant disrespect shown to the much more capable teacher. Only she was allowed to do that to him.

“Mister Potter! Come join us and demonstrate the power with which you triumphed over the Dark Lord! And since you are on a higher level than your classmates, you will duel me,” An agitated murmur went through the mass of students watching Helen and the famous teacher. The man had just planted a seed of envy in the heads of Harry Potter’s classmates. A seed that would grow, Helen was sure.

Reluctantly, Helen stepped onto the long stage, ignoring the hand offered to her by the DADA teacher. They walked to the middle of the stage together and faced each other, drawing their wands to bow slightly and start the duel. Turning her back to the man, they both took ten steps in the opposite direction. Both took fighting stances, and Lockhart smirked at his cheering fan club.

“Please, do begin, Mister Potter. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt!” Biting her lips in annoyance, Helen cast the first Expelliarmus. The duel got heated after a few blocked charms and Helen jumping out of the way of stunning spells. Slowly the beginner spells to disarm became more dangerous, and the goal to disarm was clearly not in Lockhart’s mind anymore. The crowd had begun to get unnerved as well, and Helen made out a head of light hair standing besides a dark haired one, pointing panicked at Lockhart, who had started to put more power in his charms. Helen had never been in a wizarding duel before, and it started to take its toll on her. Her breathing was fast and uneven, her footing began to sway, and she was barley able to block the spells being shot at her. Perhaps learning to duel properly wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

With a step taken one second too late, an _Incendio_ spell hit Helen’s right hand, which had previously held her wand. The fire started to quickly burn its was up her sleeve before it stopped. Her whole arm was burned, pulsating with flayed skin still hanging in some places and blood soaking the rest of her robes.

It was quiet in the hall. After a couple of seconds chaos broke loose. Helen held her burned arm close to her chest, not really getting the full extend of her injury yet. In her world, her arm would be unfixable, she knew that. The bared flesh she felt on her palm was smouldering hot and wet of blood and other fluids. She daren’t look at it, instead choosing to stare at Lockhart with unbelieving eyes. The teacher looked shocked at what he’d done.

Her knees gave away, and she prepared for the painful hit on the floor, when she felt thin arms wrap around her body.

Very carefully, she was lifted, and her green eyes fixed on the dark eyes of her Potions teacher. She had never seen the man so angry in all her time at Hogwarts, even not when they had their little arguments. Another second later, she felt fingers wrap around her good hand, and she looked down at Draco. The blond boy had tears swimming in his eyes and had to run to keep up with the professor’s long strides. Her head felt too heavy to hold up, and it fell on Snape’s shoulder.

She still held her burned arm close to her body to shield it from further injury. Tears had gathered in her eyes when the pain was registered by her brain, she was panting to work through it. In her studies she had learned that pain was a relative thing, only really registered and felt by her brain of each single person. If she could just make her brain stop. Closing her eyes, the tears rolling down her cheeks was the last thing she felt before she lost consciousness.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Waking up felt strange. Her right arm felt numb, and the thoughts floating around in her mind were mingled and difficult to understand differing from German and English words. When she had thought that her time in Hogwarts this year would be easy, she had thought wrong. She never wanted to visit the Infirmary as a patient. In her previous life she had never been a patient at her own hospital.

A cold hand was laid on her forehead and Helen opened her eyes slowly. The big room was dark, the sun had set long ago. Only few candles lit up the room, like her bedroom down in the dungeons. Her bed was surrounded by a curtain, creating the illusion of privacy. Taking a deep breath, Helen started to make out the face that looked at her from above. Sirius was leaning over her with a worried expression on his face. His eyes were red and swollen.

“Hey.”, she croaked and let her eyes wander to her right arm. The appendage was wrapped up in gauze that felt sticky against her bared flesh.

“Harry…”, whispered Sirius and took her left hand between both of his. He held them up and leaned his face against them, as to assure himself that Harry was here with him, that he hadn’t lost the last bit of family left to him.

A weak smile found its way onto her tired face and her eyes took in the other people in the room. Near the exit stood Snape with his watchful eyes on both Sirius and Helen. Poppy just made her way over to them, a bottle of something in her hands.

“Mister Potter! I hadn’t thought that I would have to treat you as a patient here! That horrible new teacher Dumbledore has hired is at fault. How could the headmaster let someone like that loose on students? Using fire spells on minors! And who is left to pick up the pieces?” Sirius had to chuckle at that, and Helen’s smile grew a little. Carefully extracting her hand from Sirius’ Helen accepted the potion. It tasted horrid, but that was to be expected.

“I will make sure that bastard is fired. He will not get to see any position in a teaching facility again, no matter how famous he is supposed to be!” Sirius was obviously livid. Helen watched how Snape’s face contorted into distaste, but there was some agreement as well.

“At least it is you who treats me, Poppy. I wouldn’t want anyone else.” Helen felt no pain at the moment. Poppy had given her a strong pain reliever.

“Oh Potter, you shut your mouth. We need you back as soon as possible, otherwise Black here will never leave. Your skin and some of your flesh and muscles need to regrow. It should take about a week, if not less. There might be some scarring left.” Helen nodded in acceptance, already planning affective ways of killing Lockhart. Without any more words Poppy nodded back and disappeared back into her office.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you, Harry. If I could just… do anything to help you.” Helen held her hand back out to Sirius, who took it gratefully between his again.

“You couldn’t have done anything. I’ll be better in no time, you’ll see. Don’t worry so much.” Sirius gave a weak smile and tried to be discreet at wiping away the tears in his eyes. The man in front of her was indeed very different form the Sirius in the books. This Sirius relayed a lot on Harry for comfort and direction. She noticed a movement in the corner of her eye, and remembered Snape standing there.

“Professor?” The man had been about to leave. Now he stood there, hanging between hallway and door, contemplating if he should ignore Helen’s request or not.

“Thank you.”


	11. An unbreakable vow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, perhaps you noticed in previous chapters, but I'm starting to change Helen's name to Harry.  
> It's very present in this chapter, always changing. Don't worry, in the next it will consistently be Harry that is used ;D  
> Live with me through this confusing time~
> 
> -CB

It was morning when Helen next opened her eyes again. She had been bound to the Infirmary for the last couple of days, with nothing to do. There had been many visits from students she had never met before, who asked if she was alright and left sweets and biscuits. It was the morning of her third day when Dumbledore entered the room for the first time. Helen noticed how his old eyes swayed to the still body of the muggleborn student before it settled on her.

“Harry, how good to see that you are faring well after the accident.” Helen had never really talked with the old wizard and wasn’t sure on how to approach a relation with him. Perhaps she should stay in his good books before he would prove to be working against her more than with her, which she knew would happen at some point again.

“Yes, I’m doing better, thanks to Poppy and my friends visiting.” Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully and went to sit on the side of Helen’s bed.

“Harry, I’m really sorry about what happened to you. I understand that it can leave scars?” Now it was at Helen to nod and Dumbledore gave her a deploring look. She didn’t care for his pity; it didn’t help the little predicament she’d have to face when Poppy decided to take off the bandage.

“What will happen to Lockhart, headmaster? Surely he can’t remain part of the faculty.” The headmaster didn’t think long about his answer but smiled calmingly at Harry as to assure him of his own credibility.

“He will stay at Hogwarts for now. I will see how he can indemnify his actions to you.” Helen’s eye twitched. How could Dumbledore let this go unpunished? Lockhart had hurt Harry Potter publicly and more importantly, with lasting damage. Harry already had a scar people knew him by, now he had a scarred arm in addition. A lump had formed in Helen’s throat, which she tried to swallow down. Looking away, she let the professor know that he wasn’t welcome anymore, and with a heavy sigh the old man stood up again.  


“I’m sorry, my boy. Let me know if there is anything, I can do for you.”

 

That night, she heard the voice of the basilisk for the first time. Threatening to kill, to destroy most of the student body and follow the order of her master.

 

 

It was the middle of the night when Helen was woken up by a couple of hushed voices and light streaming into the previously dark Infirmary.

“We can’t let this go on, Albus. The board is already at our throats for Lockhart, that walking atrocity. And do I have to mention that Mister Malfoy has his mind set on getting rid of Lockhart with the help of his almighty father as well? You really shouldn’t have allowed that man to teach in the first place! And that message… We are lucky that we found it before the students, the outcry this would have caused!” It was McGonagall talking to Dumbledore.

She sounded angry. Opening one of her green eyes, Helen spied on the teachers setting down yet another student who had turned to stone on one bed, and Mrs. Norris on anther. In came Filch, sobbing with Snape following like a shadow. The dark wizard looked dishevelled and not exactly up for what was currently happening.

“I know, Minerva, but we have to focus on Hogwarts right now. We need him as a teacher. What happened to Harry was an accident and will never be repeated. The most important thing at hand is to stop whatever it is that is turning our students into stone and find the person who opened the chamber.” With those words Dumbledore left the hospital ward, leaving a shocked looking McGonagall.

“Sometimes I really can’t believe that man.” At least Ginny wasn’t in the chamber yet, Helen still hadn’t gotten around to get it from the Room of Requirement.

Snape was left with the still sobbing caretaker. Helen had to hold back a snort at the uncomfortable look on the sour teacher’s face.

Empathy wasn’t his strong suit either, of course not.  

After some minutes Filch seemed to be collected enough. He petted his cat a last time and left after that. Snape stayed for a few more seconds, and Helen felt his eyes on her. She had closed her eyes again and was certain he didn’t notice her being awake.

The next minutes were spend with her trying to find sleep again. It stayed at trying, though, as Helen felt her duvet being pulled away from her body, exposing her to the chilly air of the castle. Startling upwards into a sitting position Helen looked around, not seeing anyone.

“Harry Potter, Sir, finally Dobby has found Sir!” Helen closed her eyes and felt a headache coming on. Dobby was loyal and had true intentions, but he got onto her nerves quite fast.

“Hello Dobby, how’s it going?” Dobby looked at her, confusion marring his big face.

“Dobby- Dobby doesn’t know how to answer Harry Potter! Dobby is sorry, Sir! Dobby will punish himself accordingly!” Helen rolled her eyes, her healthy hand snapping out to stop the house elf.

“No, you will stay and tell me what you have to say, please. You don’t want to waste my time, right?” Dobby’s eyes looked ready to pop out of their sockets and he started to stammer.

“D-Dobby wanted to warn Harry Potter! Harry Potter mustn’t come back to Hogwarts! Dark forces ally to bring Harry Potter harm, and- and Dobby shouldn’t have searched for Harry Potter. He tried to get to you before Hogwarts started, but Harry Potter was hidden from Dobby’s view. Harry Potter must have returned to the Black house an-“ Helen held up her hand to signal him to stop talking. The house elf shrank back a notch, expecting to be hit.

“Dobby, thank you for trying to warn me, but you don’t have to worry, I can fend for myself.” His big, green eyes flickered to her still bandaged arm and back to her eyes.

“That was a mere oversight on my part. I know about the dark powers that consort in Hogwarts, but it’s still very kind of you to help me.”

“But Harry Potter doesn’t know about the girl! The girl that kills the ground keeper’s roosters and the spiders that come from deep in the forest. Harry Potter doesn’t know! Harry Potter has to be protected!” Helen’s patients had run dry at this point of the conversation, like it had so many times before, and she let her sharp tongue take control.

“I do know about that, Dobby. I don’t require your help at the moment, thank you very much.”

Dobby looked even more shocked than he had before, snapped his fingers and vanished into dust.

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Walking down the warm fields of Hogwarts’ grounds again felt good. Helen felt healthy after so much time wasted in the Infirmary. The sun was shining for a change and the Highlands looked beautiful in the light of the rising sun. Helen only wore a shirt and short pants, trying to stop her body from sweating. She couldn’t deal with heat as well as with cold.

“Does it still hurt?”, came the tentative question from Draco who was walking beside her. Her eyes fell on her right arm. The scars didn’t look too bad. As a doctor she had seen horrible scarring to the point of mutilation. The scars decorating her arm were silvery thin lines running over the whole length of it. Even her hand down to the fingertips were affected. The magical ointment and potions Poppy had given Harry had helped and restored most of the skin, flesh and muscles of the arm.

“Not really. It’s sore, but don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”, she teased and got a prompt answer to it, in form of a shove down a small part of the hill. Tripping and stumbling into the high grass around them, left Helen breathless for a moment. Her view of the blue sky was fantastic. Small clouds were passing by, the smell of grass and warmth entering her mind. The grass went got pressed down when Draco laid beside her, watching the sky with her.

“I wrote my father, you know. He will get Lockhart fired. Hopefully Dumbledore as well, the bloody old fool.” Helen took Draco’s hand in hers and looked at them, raised up into the blue sky. Draco’s hands were so pale, and quite a lot smaller than Harry’s. Draco ripped his hand out of Helen’s after some seconds, looking at her with warning in his eyes.

“Don’t you say anything, you pillock!” A laugh escaped Helen and she let her head fall back into the soft grass, smelling the nature and grinning broadly. She hadn’t felt this careless in a long time, and she couldn’t even say what the indicator was.

“That’s my word, Draco, you can’t steal it.” Draco was quiet for a long time while Helen felt his eyes bore into hers before he answered again.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Potter. All of Britain is stealing ‘your word’.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Helen was running from authority. Both figuratively and in reality. Lucius Malfoy had shown up this morning, confronting Dumbledore and Lockhart at breakfast. The whole scene had been hilarious. Helen had made her escape as soon as Lockhart had, both leaving the great hall and a lot of confused students and teachers in their wake.

She was just turning the corner to the seventh floor and was faintly greeted by Barnabas the Barmy. Walking in front of the blank wall three times while thinking about what she needed most in that moment. She had felt that the moment had come, heard the Gryffindor girls talking about Ginny missing at breakfast just before the older Malfoy had stormed the scene.

The door to The Room of Hidden Things appeared, and Helen stepped through. She’d been in this room before. She’d seen it on telly and read about it in the books. There was still always something new to see and explore, not that she had done much of it. Thousands of books, stools, cupboards were stocking upon each other and endless magical objects, both of light and dark origin were thrown in between. The stacks reached the ceiling, some papers strewn between the already small thin gaps.

With certain steps she approached one of the stacks and reached for the discoloured diadem. It was so simple, the Horcrux wasn’t even protected by any heavy spells like the Gaunt ring and Salazar Slytherin’s amulet. An Albanian peasant had died for this Hocrux to be made. The diadem itself was said to enhance the wearer’s wisdom, but Helen didn’t really trust that promise. Before she’d gone to the Room of Requirement, she’d been to her dorm to get the amulet she’d acquired in the drawing room of the Black house and the ring from the Gaunt shack she’d visited.

In her possession she now had four of seven Hocruxes and she was about to meet the fifth. She had a plan in mind. Hopefully the memory of Tom Riddle would be arrogant enough to believe her.

The walk to the girl’s lavatory was a relatively dangerous one. Every student in Hogwarts was looking for him, waiting for him to take his revenge on Lockhart with the help of Lucius Malfoy. But Harry Potter had more important things to do, and Helen was Harry.

The first whispered words of Parseltongue were completely improvised and it didn’t open the gate. Myrtle was watching Harry with intense attention, for once not moaning about. At the second try of incomprehensible hissing, Helen seemed to have actually made sense and the sinks parted to give way to the opening of the Chamber of Secrets. The hole was dark and intimidating. Pared with Helen’s fear of heights, jumping in would take some courage.

Breathing deeply to calm her frying nerves, Helen clutched the Horcruxes in her hand as tight as she could, before taking the step into the unknown.

 

Finding the giant hide in the old hallway was concerning. The beast looked even bigger than it had on the telly. The scales felt dry and papery, as if they could crumble into dust at the slightest disturbance. Even with the fear curling tight in her body, Harry Potter had to do his job and save the day. Ginerva Weasley was deep in that chamber and Tom Riddle was feasting on her life, getting stronger every second.

When Harry reached the last door before the main part of the Chamber, she loosened her still tight grip on the Horcruxes and put them in the pocket of her robes. It wouldn’t do her well for Riddle to see her leverage too soon.

Whispering some more word in Parseltongue, just thinking about the meaning of them in her head, the door swung open and Helen faced the big head of Salazar Slytherin at the end of the room. On the sides, the usual statues of snakes looked down on the water covering the whole floor of the room. Right in the middle in front of Slytherin’s face laid the body of the youngest Weasley sibling.

Walking slowly, Harry made her way to the unmoving child. Ginny’s face looked pale and gaunt. It remembered her of Sirius’ face at the trial. Carefully, Helen took the diary that had laid beside Ginny the whole time. Now, she hadn’t met Tom Riddle before, at least not in this life, but she knew how handsome he was. Of course, in the movies he’d always been a little too young for Helen, but now she might just be too young for him.

She slipped the diary in her robes to the other Horcruxes and turned just in time to see Riddle emerging from the dark. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Helen let her eyes fall onto Ginny.

“Is she dead already?” Riddle came nearer until Helen could see his face for the first time. He was unbelievably pretty. The boy had a dark kind of charm, which let something dark in Helen come to live. Her plan to lure Riddle in would mean to deceive the teenager. A relationship build on lies was a toxic one from the beginning. Mostly doomed to fail.

“No, not yet. I’m afraid to tell you, as poor Ginny grows weaker, I grow stronger. Yes Harry, Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber. She killed Hagrid’s roosters, drew the threatening messages and let the basilisk loose on the mudbloods and Filch’s cat. She did that because I told her to. You will find that I can be very persuasive.”

This Tom Riddle didn’t know Harry Potter. He didn’t know what Harry knew. Riddle was on the defensive in this moment. He had to be.

“It certainly sounds like something you would tell her, Tom.” His dark eyes widened and narrowed at her. In that moment Helen noticed that there wasn’t a big difference of height between them, something that gave her more confidence.

“I know things, Tom. I know who you are going to become in the future, or in your future at least. You are just a memory in mine, though, are you not?” That seemed to confuse the young boy. He was only sixteen years old, after all. Sixteen, arrogant and powerful when he still had his whole soul.

“I am far more than a mere memory, Harry Potter. I _am_ Lord Voldemort. He is me, my future, present and past. When I absorb dear Ginny’s life, me and him will rule over the whole world. We will enslave all mudbloods, kill their families and everyone who… fraternises!” Helen openly rolled her eyes at his childish fantasies.

“Don’t you know yourself best, Tom? Would you ever share your power with anyone, especially a naïve, younger version of yourself? There is no you and him. Without Ginny’s life you don’t have any particular power, especially not over me.” The young Tom Riddle was so shocked that he took some steps back from Harry, not so sure of himself anymore. After a second, he build his walls again and smirked annoyingly.

“And who are you to take Ginny away from me? She’s my current source of power, you’re right. But even without my full resources, I can still set the basilisk on you. Kill you once and for all to finish what Lord Voldemort started.” Helen’s eyes flickered from Salazar Slytherin’s head to Tom and the knot in her stomach came back. She wouldn’t have the sword of Gryffindor; she didn’t have Dumbledore’s trust nor was she a member of the Gryffindor house.

“But why would you do that? I heard that you are supposed to be in Slytherin, isn’t that right?” Tom nodded; his face blank.

“That’s one of the many things we have in common, you and me. We’re resourceful and cunning. I am neither here to fight with your pet basilisk, nor to rescue Ginny Weasley. I want you on my side, Tom. You must be smart enough to see that you are not on Voldemort’s. He will destroy you as soon as you bring him back in a position of power. You are a liability for him. All his past, his disgusting half-blood childhood in person there to serve him. You will be dead as soon as you turn your back to him.” Helen knew that she was right, and so did Riddle. Did the boy really expect to rule alongside Lord Voldemort in the future?

“And what could you offer me to join your side? The side of a twelve-year-old child. Why would I want to be another of Dumbledore’s little foot soldiers?” It was hard not to roll her eyes again. Riddle was book smart, apparently there was as good as no social knowledge in that big brain of his. To always have goons who were easy to manipulate had seemingly radiated the ability to recognise certain traits in other people.

“I am not on Dumbledore’s side. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not on Voldemort’s either. I’m on my side. I do what I deem right and wrong. I deem you worthy to help me destroy Voldemort. I offer you a chance at redemption. Have you seen your future self? Do you really want to become him? Can’t you feel the holes in your soul?”

Tom’s eyes were slightly glazed over when his hand found its way up to where his heart was beating. Helen knew she had him. Tom Riddle was stubborn, but he also had fears which she could manipulate. His biggest fear was death. To be killed by himself was the worst possible way to die.

“I can help you fill that hole.” Slowly, Helen took out the diadem. That was the Horcrux that was hidden with the least effort, something a second grader could easily find if they knew of the existence. She heard his sharp gasp, and felt the floor move suddenly, the basilisk had noticed Tom’s shock. Since he was a soul fragment himself, it wasn’t surprising that he’d recognised another part of himself, even if the creating of the Horcrux was past his own creation.

“Where did you get that?” Tom’s voice was as sharp as his gasp before. His posture had gone back to threatening.

“I found it where you left it. If I give that to you, you can leave Ginny alone. You will be strong enough to use your magic again.”

“Why would I want that? I made it to- I don’t want to reabsorb it, it would destroy all my plans.”

“It would destroy Voldemort’s plans, Tom. You made seven, in the end. You weren’t yourself anymore. An ugly, unhappy creature. No friends, only followers who denied you as soon as you were destroyed. There is nothing here for that person. I offer this item to _you_ , not him.”

The memory seemed swayed. His dark eyes were fixed longingly on his soul fragment, being one himself. His face was still blank. Helen started to come near him, the Horcrux held in front of her. She hoped that Riddle’s hunger for power would persuade him.

“I want an unbreakable vow. I want you to promise not to destroy me.” Tom's words let Helen snap her hand back, the diadem disappearing in her robes again. The other Horcruxes weren’t important for now. She didn’t want Tom to regain his full power before she was sure that he would never betray her.

“If you swear not to betray me.” The smirk was back on Tom’s face, as if he was sure he could outplay her demand in the end. He clearly wanted to be the one holding the cards, and Harry would let him pretend if it suited her needs.

Tom held out his hand, and Helen took it carefully. His hand was soft and pale, a lot like Draco’s, just bigger.

Taking out her wand, Helen started the spell, and both swore their allegiance to each other. The thin sliver of magic laid itself over their hands, burning to complete the vow.

After it was done, Helen took out the diadem and diary again. She didn’t know how to make Tom reabsorb the Horcrux, but perhaps Tom did. He had researched the dark artefact after all.

“I just have to touch both, that should… trigger the Horcrux to return to my human body.” Trusting him only because of the previous unbreakable vow, Harry gave Tom both Horcruxes and watched as the light enclosed the boy’s body. A scream tore through the moist air. The process of reabsorbing one’s soul had to be agonising, going by Riddle, who now laid in the stale water.

Light still streamed out of his eyes, mouth, nose and ears. It looked like when he’d died in the second movie. Shock and horror rooted Helen to the spot. She watched as the body convulsed, creating waves that let her already wet feet get even wetter. The light slowly disappeared, leaving a hard-breathing Riddle, trying to gather his bearings together.

Squatting down, Harry offered Riddle a hand. The teenager took it without thinking too much about it. Helen’s first look of Riddle let her think that perhaps they should have waited for him to reabsorb his soul. A bed near would have helped, and something to eat as well. Riddle looked white as a sheet, with no blood in his cheeks and a hollow expression marring his face.

Perhaps something had gone wrong?

“How are you feeling, Tom? Do you want to sit down again?” Tom’s breath was calm again, but a forced kind of calm. A few seconds later, his face darkened, and Tom turned on his heal, making his way to the mouth of Salazar Slytherin.

“I am fine. Come by tomorrow and we will discuss our further actions.” Before Tom made his way into the mouth that had just opened, Harry stopped him in his tracks.

“You won’t send the basilisk through the pipes anymore, Tom. You can’t leave the Chamber either, it’s too dangerous.” She heard one last angry noise coming form the other boy and he left, the stone mouth closing again.

Helen leaned down to Ginny, thinking about how to get Ginny out of the Chamber and into the infirmary.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

At the end of the second year of Helen’s time at Hogwarts, Lockhart sat in a group cell in Azkaban, all thanks to Lucius Malfoy. Or more thanks to Draco Malfoy, who wouldn’t leave the matter of Lockhart hurting Harry the way he did in front of so many students.

Other parents had reported the incident to Ministry as well, and it became a bigger thing than Helen had initially thought. But Harry Potter getting lifelong scars was always a big deal.

Helen had visited Tom Riddle on several occasions and had started to develop a spell that would ensure that the boy wouldn’t be able to leave the Chamber without Harry’s consent. The problem of Tom needing food, sleep and every other human needs was left to solve as well. Thankfully, Salazar Slytherin was a man of many surprises, and once Harry and Tom had talked about a few fundamental things they had searched the Chamber and found living quarters in the back of it. Even a small library with many scarce books, of which Harry thought to read them as well, when he would find time.

Tom hadn’t set the basilisk to kill anymore muggleborn, and they were revived like in the books and movies, no questions asked about why students stopped turning into stone.

At the end of the year, Harry was sure that in the real world, such open endings would bode ill with society. In the wizarding society, though, everyone was just happy for the moment that Hogwarts could continue to run as it had for thousands of years already.


	12. A slight kiss

“I don’t think you understand what I’ve been saying for the past days, Tom. You can’t leave the castle. There are people who know about Voldemort’s origin, and I can’t protect you outside of this room. My godfather doesn’t even know I’m here.”

Harry couldn’t believe the other boy sitting at the table, looking immersed in in the book he’d found in one of the many bookshelves looming around them.

It was cold in Salazar Slytherin’s old quarters, or whatever these rooms once were.

“And I don’t believe that you understand the magnitude of me being in these rooms all summer long. I have been here even before the holidays started. It’s cold and disgusting, not fitting for the heir of Salazar Slytherin at all.” Harry took a deep breath to calm herself down. It was harder dealing with Tom Riddle than she had originally thought.

“These are the rooms of Salazar himself. What place can be more fitting? I can’t let you out yet. First, I must convert my godfather enough to follow me into this. I have to have his complete trust for this to work.”

Riddle’s dark eyes lifted from the old pages and fixed on Harry’s form. She had grown a lot over the summer again and stood almost a whole head over Tom himself. A fact the older teenager did not approve of at all.

“You mean to tell me that the only family you still have, does not trust you? After I killed your parents, I thought you’d have a deeper bound to anyone left for you to latch onto.” Another deep breath was taken, and Harry turned to leave the Chamber. Just as she had reached the door, she hear Tom speak and the heavy, scaly body of the Basilisk moved in front of door, blocking her way outside where her Portkey lay.

“You won’t turn your back on me, Harry Potter! I am the more powerful wizard here; you surely know that much at least. I demand to be free to go wherever I please.”

Anger started to build up in Harry. Tom was bothersome and got on her nerves faster than perhaps even Lockhart had.

“You stay here, Tom. You stay here until I decide that it’s save for you to come with me.” She saw the outrage on Tom’s face. It was the last thing she saw before she apparated just outside the door to her Portkey, leaving a disbelieving young wizard behind.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Harry didn’t really see the point in the train ride to Hogwarts anymore. Of course, in the beginning she’d been fascinated. To be able to ride on the Hogwarts Express was a wish many people from her previous life had. Attending Hogwarts was a thing she still treasured. It was a whole new range of possibilities that had presented itself to her.

It had no use to dwell so much on days past, though. Her life was now. Now, sitting in another of the small compartments of the Express with Draco and his other friends. Harry hadn’t thought of a book to bring this time. She fancied to talk to Draco far more these days. They’d met up with each other over the holidays, even if only a few times.

They had practised to conquer Harry’s fear of heights, with less success than Harry liked to admit.

While practicing in the small range set out to practice Quidditch that the Grimmauld place had, Sirius had watched them. He’s stared out of the window of his room. Harry had felt the remorse and melancholia emanating from him. Sirius hadn’t talked all that much over the summer, as if his condition had gotten worse.

Harry had cared a lot for the older man. Preparing meals, she had eaten with her family back in Germany for him. She wanted to cheer him up, even if it was only for a small moment. But in the end, there was no way to run from all of this madness.

“Harry, did you even listen to me?” Harry’s eyes rose to meet Draco’s and she smiled lightly.

“Pardon me. I was deep in thought, it seems.” Draco only raised an elegant eyebrow and looked her up with suspicion.

“Sure. I asked you what extra classes you are going to take?”

“I think I will take Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes. What about you?”

Draco planned to take the same classes, what a surprise.

“Shouldn’t you consider Muggle Studies as well, Draco? I mean, you sure know nothing about them.” All of them laughed at Blaise’s comment. All except for Draco, who’s face lit up like a wildfire.

“Perhaps you should take Divination, Blaise. I can see you and the blind Trelawney getting along so well! Both completely deluded.” Harry fought the urge to grin at their banter. She loved Draco’s fire. It worked well with Blaise’s normally calm demeanour. They were still at each other’s throats more often than not.

Pansy sat with them as well but had apparently decided that talking to Harry was a disgrace. The girl was now annoying the quiet Theodore with some stories of what she’d done over the holidays. Most of the stories were of Pansy and her mother going shopping or learning something children her age learned.

Harry noticed the collateral beauty of these moments. The friendly banter, the annoying girl that hated her for some reason or another. Even if she didn’t talk too much with Draco’s friends, they were a nice group, getting along for the biggest part. A mutual acceptance, or rather an unacceptance on Pansy’s part.

But everything was fine. There was no life or death situation boiling beneath the surface this time. It would be the most normal year they’d had yet.

Even with Tom Riddle sitting in the cellar.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

 

She should have anticipated this, really. Lupin as a DADA teacher was just great. The man was a capable teacher alright, but he did betray the only person Harry could consider family in this world.

Another thing that didn’t sit right with Harry. She actually cared for Sirius, a situation she hadn’t really anticipated. But nothing of this was ever really anticipated, after all.

Harry was playing a game that didn’t have any rules. Dancing in the dark of an unfamiliar room.

The first days of school were mostly normal. Harry had visited Tom a few times already, but had left after a few minutes every time, since the heir of Slytherin had always decided to ignore her.

The third year was going to be boring, if not for the fact that Lupin was teaching her DADA class. There were no Dementor to fear either, since Sirius hadn’t broken out of Azkaban. The fourth year was going to be more of a challenge, with Barty Crouch Jr. lurking about. She could stop him from escaping and finding Voldemort, but she had to leave some of the more important plots of the story intact, otherwise she would have to find her own way in unknown situations.

“Mister Potter, would it be possible for you to stay after class? I have something of importance to speak to you about.” Lupin’s voice was deep and scratchy. Harry didn’t have a lot of other choices but to stay behind, so she nodded and watched the teacher go on with the lesson.

It was the lesson about the Boggart, that much was obvious.

Neville had just defeated his greatest fear when Lupin started the music and the scene unfolded a lot like it had in the original story. Harry was uncomfortable, seeing what her greatest fear really was. There were some things she would consider herself afraid of, but nothing she could name as her greatest fear.

It was her turn, when the Boggart started to transform in front of all students. Draco stood behind her in line, and she could almost feel his curiosity.

Harry held her wand high in the air, her scarred hand shaking a little. Seconds went by, until the Boggart took on a final form and Harry’s breath left her body.

Familiar blue eyes stared into her green ones. Blond hair fell just under the chin of the woman standing in the middle of the room. A thin face with dark circles under tired eyes. She wore her usual white coat over her surgery clothing and held some papers in her left arm.

Harry was taller than her now.

It felt strange looking down into her face.

Harry felt faint, looking at herself, but at the same time looking at someone she didn’t know anymore. It felt like a distant memory now, working at the hospital and never having time for anything else anymore. Watching documentaries in the dark with the only comfort being far too expensive food and drinks she bought with her hard-earned money. Having a family waiting for a call and visit in another part of the country.

She felt the tingling of tears beginning to form behind her eyes, clouding her vision. Taking a deep breath, she remembered the movement of her wand and the spell to make her go away.

“ _Riddikulus!_ ” While the Boggart was humiliated by the laughter of Harry’s classmates, she clenched her teeth walking to the end of the line.

That hadn’t been a nice lesson.

Still, she stayed behind after everyone was done, thoughts running wild.

Lupin sat behind his desk, writing something down.

“I wasn’t aware that you are afraid of doctors, Harry. I heard that you work with Madame Pomfrey quite often.” Lupin’s words were carefully crafted. He must have thought about what to say before actually speaking to her.

“I’m not afraid of physicians, professor.” Harry let some time pass, waiting for Lupin to ask his actual question. When nothing came but a confused look in her direction she started to talk again.

“But that isn’t hat you wanted to say to me, is it?” Lupin sighed quite loudly in the otherwise quiet room. The man was carrying a lot of heavy weight on his shoulders.

“You are just as bright as Lily… I wanted to talk to you about what happened at the trial.”

Harry nodded for him to continue.

“I- what I did was wrong and stupid. I didn’t think. I couldn’t see the truth, even if it was right in front of me. I have lost all my friends in one night and- I just couldn’t deal with it. I still can’t, really. What I did is unforgivable. I know that.”

The older man looked miserable, sitting sunken in at his desk, his honey eyes set somewhere on Harry’s chin. He was obviously waiting for an answer of some kind. A reassurance that it wasn’t such a big deal after all.

But Harry didn’t react. She agreed with Lupin’s conclusion.

It really wasn’t forgivable.

“Harry, please say something? I just wanted you to know that- that I really regret the things that I said. The things I believed to be true for such a long time. I just want to… I don’t know... make amends? I have to talk to Sirius. I know he won’t want to, but if you would tell him to! I could-“ Harry had heard enough.

“You won’t use Sirius to feel better about yourself. You are right, what you did is not forgivable. You were willing to send Sirius to his death. I won’t forget that, and he won’t either. Make your amends somewhere else. Leave us be.” She felt indignant. How dare Lupin demand to see Sirius after everything he’d done?

Harry turned and left the office.

\-----------------------------------------------------

 

It was weeks after the initial conversation. Lupin had been quiet since then, looking even more pathetic than before. Harry knew that the full moon was coming and hoped that Snape was still willing to make that potion for the other professor. Having to deal with a werewolf on top of all these personal issues would be a pain.

Her new classes went surprisingly well. Since Ancient Runes was a lot like learning a new language, Harry took to it quite good. She’d always excelled at languages.

She missed getting to speak in her native language. Speaking it gave her comfort. She had noticed that early in life when she’d been to foreign countries. But speaking German would just draw attention to her. Attention she couldn’t use now.

In her spare time that wasn’t spend with Draco and the others, Harry had started to explore Hogwarts some more. She’s spoken to more portraits to gain access to some secret passages that would come in handy when running late for classes, which happened almost never.

Something that didn’t go too well was potions. Remus Lupin’s presence in the castle seemed to aggravate the normally already aggravated potions professor even more.

Of course, Harry had the word ‘punching bag’ tattooed on his forehead, which lead to some fallouts between her and her favourite professor.

It went so far, that Harry once overheard a conversation between McGonagall and Snape in the corridor. The transfiguration professor had talked sternly, reminding him of his position and obligation to teach each student the same.

Harry had felt flattered by McGonagall’s concern for her.

Draco had been angry as well, dismissing his godfather. It felt as if she had some safety in this game. People who had her back, even if she was lying to all of them. It was a lie of omission, but a lie, nonetheless.

 

She had made her way up to the astronomy tower. It was dinner time, with almost all students enjoying a nice meal in the great hall.

But Harry wasn’t hungry.

She had this queasy feeling in her stomach again. It had been an almost constant feeling she’d had since she found herself here.

Seeing herself the other day had been almost traumatising.

Harry had begun to dream of days past. Of her family and friends. It had started to affect her, in class as well. She was tired nowadays. Even more so than normal.

The cold air of the late evening was calming her down slowly.

Sitting down at the railing and letting her legs dangle down was just as calming as it was exhilarating. The height of the tower made her palms sweat.

Cool metal against her forehead, she started to take deep breaths and listen to what was going on around her.

A few birds were chirping about, the distance sound of voices could be hear as well, getting carried by the wind. There were other students walking in the courtyard, sitting on the fountain and talking.

After about half an hour the scent in the air started to change. It started to smell like rain, one of Harry’s favourite smells. Hopefully there would be a thunderstorm soon.

“Harry? What are you doing here? I’ve been searching for you for hours!” A small smile appeared on Harry’s face. Of course, Draco would search for him. He wasn’t the kind to be stood up and done with it.

“Are you not hungry, muppet? I’ve been waiting for you as well!” Draco sounded quite angry.

Perhaps he should try calming down too. Harry felt Draco’s presence beside him and turned his smiling face to look up at the blond.

“What are you smiling about? And why are you sitting on the floor? It’s unbecoming for an heir of an old house to sit in filth.” Despite his words, Draco sat down beside Harry after a few seconds of silence.

“I’ve just been thinking. Nothing to worry about.” Now Draco looked even angrier with her than before.

“You’ve been doing that an awful lot, for a muppet. It’s getting old.”

Harry just shrugged.

“What was Lupin doing, anyway? Having you stay after class. What did he want?” Draco leaned back, letting his arms hold his weight. His thin legs were dangling through the railing as well, they were sitting close.

“He’s a- I guess you could say he’s an old family friend. He’s also a stupid idiot who betrayed my godfather at his trial.”

Draco was quiet for a longer time after that. Dark clouds started to gather above them, letting the dark take over. Some candles lit up, a charm cast for students studying until late hours. Harry leaned back as well, now on one level with Draco.

“Why would he betray you like that?” Harry knew why.

“He was hurt. He thought Sirius had told Voldemort where to find my parents, like everyone did until recently.”

“Can you fault him for that? If everyone thought it?” Harry couldn’t quite believe what she heard. Was Draco defending someone that wasn’t himself or one of his friends?

“Of course, I can! He was Sirius’ best friend, Draco. He should have known that he wouldn’t do something like that. He would never. Especially, because they were together, Sirius and Remus, I believe. I don’t get how Remus would have thought him capable of it…”

Harry had thought about that possibility a lot. It wasn’t exactly canon. Not something that was ever mentioned, but it seemed like a probable scenario. Sirius was so broken after he’d heard Remus talk at the trial. More broken than he’d ever been in the original story. She couldn’t fathom the hurt he must have felt. Perhaps they weren’t together, but she was sure that Sirius had feelings for Remus.

“Y-you mean together, romantically?”, Draco asked with big eyes. His face had taken on a light red tone. Barely noticeable in the bad light. The lighting in Hogwarts was just generally unflattering.  

“Yes, you got something against that?” Her tone was teasing. It was a little like a Déjà-vu.

“No, I don’t, muppet.”

“Stop using that word so much. It loses its initial impact if you use it too often.”

“I use it as I want to, you can’t tell me what to do.”

It was strange, how they got along like that.

They continued to talk about Remus, Sirius and Harry’s general problem with the situation when they started to feel the little drops of rain. They were barely there in the beginning, just enough to feel it, when the first lightning came down, followed by a shattering thunder some seconds later.

Harry watched as Draco’s pale face was lit up by the lightning, his grey eyes drawn to find the source.

The rain was coming down harder after that. Big, fat drops soaking their school robes and hair. They must look like wet dogs. But they were both not standing up to leave. Just taking in their legs to huddle closer together.

Watching the storm, feeling the rain, hearing the people seek shelter on the courtyard beneath them. It all felt a little distant. She felt Draco’s warm body against hers. It was strange to be close to people in this body. This scrawny, long body with so many sharp edges instead of soft curves.

It was a good body, but in the throes of puberty, not fully developed yet.

After some time, the candles began to flicker, a sign that curfew was nearing. Shaking from the cold they made their way back, dripping on the floor for the whole way down to the dungeons. They took longer than anticipated, and curfew had begun a few minutes ago. When before they had chuckled about a stupid joke one of them had made, now they had to be careful not to get caught sneaking around by a prefect.

When they heard fast footsteps approaching, Harry pushed Draco gently into a small corner between a statue and the corridor, pressing a hand against his mouth to stop any noises.

The steps went by, and both boys had to chuckle madly after Harry had taken his hand from Draco’s mouth. Their hearts were beating fast and both still shivered, their lips starting to tint blue.

In the fits of giggles, they suddenly caught each other’s eye.

That wasn’t anything new, but it felt different now.

Perhaps it was the little pump of adrenalin the surprising hiding had given them, but both their breaths got caught. Tinted lips met in the middle, just a light press, but still there.

It felt like the little raindrops had in the beginning. Cooling and slight.

A grin appeared on Harry’s face when he noticed that Draco had to stand a little on his toes to reach him.

Their faces were both red now, and they began to giggle again. The kiss had ended as sudden as it had begun, when they heard someone take a surprised breath behind them.

Harry had to turn to see who it was, Draco just adjusted his eyes, still pressed against the stone wall.

Bushy, mouse brown hair and huge brown eyes were staring at the pair. Hermione’s face had to be just as red as theirs, if not more.

Still a little high on adrenalin, Harry didn’t care what Hermione had seen. Harry wanted to take a warm shower and sleep in her warm bed, a fire crackling in the background and Draco sleeping in the bed beside her.

She took Draco’s shaking hand in hers and made a run for it. Pushing past the befuddled Gryffindor and through the last corridors until they finally reached their common room.   


End file.
